


Genesis

by 1shinymess (magpie4shinies)



Category: Tron (1982), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie4shinies/pseuds/1shinymess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This can't be possible. I mean. Even in the Grid, time exists, which explains why Dad looked like Guiness' Kenobi. How could we be here? How could *they?*"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have an obsessive need to integrate some manner of time-travel into every fandom I write in, and I am not ashamed.

"Sam!" Flynn shouted across the gap in the bridge. "It's time!"

Sam shook his head. "No!"

Quorra leaned in, grabbing his arm. "Sam. It's what he wants."

Sam didn't look away from his father, the wind of the portal blasting his hair and coat back. He was such a different person from the figure Sam remembered, but Sam couldn't let it go, not when he'd only just met him again. "I'm not leaving you!"

Flynn ducked his head against the wind "Take her!"

Sam finally looked down and Quorra handed up her Identity Disc. He realized what his father had done. _Oh, God..._ He looked back across the gap, begging with wide eyes for his father to give him another way, _any other way,_ as he backed slowly into the column of light.

But Flynn only looked proud of Sam, only smiled. "Yes!"

Sam's hand tightened around his father's Identity Disc before he swallowed and sent it up, unlocking the portal.

Quorra stood beside him as he felt materialization begin, like someone was dragging a fine-toothed comb _through_ his body, but it wasn't enough to distract him from his dad's face. He said something, maybe goodbye. Sam couldn't breathe past the tightness in his throat.

Then Clu pushed himself up onto the platform, and his expression was almost exactly the same as his father's. Somehow, Sam felt worse seeing it than he already had. He looked past him at his dad and knew without any confirmation what he was about to witness. 

Flynn dropped to the floor and Sam felt...something tingle and pull at him even through the segmentation of materialization as his father exercised the incredible power he'd developed here. Sam looked past Clu to his father through eyes gone blurry, trying to burn everything into his memory. He could still see Clu struggling forward, face a grimace of rage, juxtaposed to his father's almost peaceful expectation as he stood arms spread, and finally called Clu home.

Reintegration of the two major forces directing data in the Grid sent out a wave of force and energy, tangible even in the portal's beam. There was a crushing pressure and the feeling of tumbling, almost like being digitized the first time, and a searing light – 

and then nothing. Sam was blind and deafened, the ground jarring beneath his unsteady feet and then his knees as he fell. He put his hands down, pushing up and focusing on breathing as the darkness slowly lightened.

The floor of the platform appeared slowly through the receding blackness. The light of the portal was a brighter accent, but seemed dimmer than it had been.

"Sam?"

"Quorra!" Sam turned toward her voice. He found her as a short pillar of dark against the portal's light and grabbed her shoulder thankfully. "Are you OK?"

"I'm fine! Are you?"

"Yeah! What was that?"

"Reintegration! I guess it interrupted our transfer."

Sam blinked rapidly, clearing away the dark patches as quickly as he could until he could see Quorra's face for himself and then quickly looked around. The hum of the I/O tower was a constant buzz in his ear but he couldn't hear Clu's ship anymore. "You think Reintegration knocked Clu's armada out of the sky?"

Quorra's brow furrowed. "I don't know...we need to get Flynn's disc out while we can, just in case!"

Sam looked back to where his father had just been standing, the epicenter of the lightquake that had shaken the portal, and swallowed. "Right."

He held up his dad's disc and felt it once more cycle through available commands. LLSDLaserControl was an accessible command again and Sam felt the command slot into place with the same strange weight as before.

"What's wrong?"

Sam looked back at Quorra and blinked. Her outline was fading, not unlike the edge of the light diffusing from the portal to the environment. "What do you mean?"

"Activate the portal, Sam!" she said, grabbing his arm. "We don't know what the rest of the plan was!"

Sam shook his head. "I did! I activated the portal!" Quorra's eyes went wide and Sam returned her grip. Her arm was lighter than it should have been, felt thinner. "You don't feel it?"

"No!" She bit her lip and then shook her head. "Go! Get it out of here--"

"I'm not leaving you too!" Sam shouted, wrenching the disc out of alignment, automatically canceling the recall command on the laser.

The pressure of Rematerialization disappeared in a flash, leaving him light headed and nauseous and sending him staggering a few steps before Quorra grabbed him around the waist, her grip once more strong and sure.

"We don't have time for this, Sam!"

Sam waved her off. "You go!"

Quorra froze. "What?"

Sam turned to her and tried to smile. "You're the miracle," he pointed out. "If only one of us can get out..."

"I can't just leave you," Quorra said, eyes wide.

Sam snorted. "You'd be the first person," he muttered and then shook his head. "So neither of us is willing to leave if we can't both go."

Quorra frowned unhappily. Sam swallowed and tentatively let go of her shoulder and found he was only a bit off-balance. "We need to know what's going on, then. I don't hear the Recognizer, but there could be more coming. "

Quorra nodded.

Sam started forward and then frowned. "Hey...when did the bridge extend?"

Quorra frowned. "Maybe the destruction triggered something?"

"I guess...maybe a restore point?" Sam muttered. He forced himself to walk forward past the spot he'd last seen his father. "You think Clu dropped his spare jet baton?"

"We aren't getting out of here otherwise," Quorra said, striding forward so they actually crossed under the arch together.

They both stopped at roughly the same moment. "...huh. Is that...normal?" Sam asked, brows arched sharply as he looked at Quorra.

Quorra's eyes were wide. "Not...really."

The platform was different, a little...off, but what jumped out was the docked light jet. It was the same kind they'd taken from Clu's Armada, the large three-seater.

"That's...convenient," Sam muttered. "Would a restore point do this?" he asked skeptically.

Quorra shrugged, her own narrow eyes suggesting she wasn't sure of the changes herself. Sam was actually kind of pleased to see some uncertainty: at least this most recent moment of doubtful confusion was being shared, unlike the the rest he'd experienced since taking Clu's bait.

Besides the jet, there was now a small case with light-batons attached to the I/O tower. "I don't like this. Do we have any other options?" Sam asked hopefully, passing one of them between his hands and then tossing another to Quorra.

She looked it over thoughtfully, then looked up at Sam, brows arching. Sam rolled his eyes. "No, I'm still not leaving."

Quorra wrinkled her nose and sighed. "Then...nope! We just have to use the jet and hope it isn't a trap."

"Great," Sam said, glaring at her from the corner of his eye before giving it up and moving to the edge of the platform to activate the jet. He looked down automatically as he lifted the baton, unable to stop himself. The same kind of vertigo he'd had to breathe through at Encom that morning lurched through him at the long drop to the dark digital water, but before he could look away, he realized there was something sparking in it, like distant white circuitry.

His eyes widened. "Rinzler!"

Quorra leaned over the edge with a curious glance at Sam and scanned the water. "He's still intact..."

Sam turned his head toward her. "We can't leave him there," he said quietly. She met his eyes and bit her lip. "Quorra, _he saved us_!"

"You're right," Qourra said after staring down into the water. "Of course. Let's grab him and then we need to sneak back to the city and figure out the rest of Clu's plan. We can check his damage then."

Sam looked at the permanent three-seater jet. "You know how to pilot by yourself?"

Quorra laughed and crossed in front of him to press against the seam of the cockpit. It opened and she glanced over her shoulder, grinning. "I think I can manage."

Sam glanced over the control panel and his eyes widened. " _Yeah,_ you'd better pilot."

"Thought you might say that," Quorra murmured, waving Sam in first.

Sam pulled himself in over the driver's seat and settled into the one beside it. They'd have to stick Tron -- or Rinzler, whatever his name was now -- in the back seat and hope the safety belt was enough to secure him.

"OK," Quorra muttered, manipulating the controls deftly.

They lowered in a straight vertical drop, something Sam tucked away to enjoy later as he quickly relocated Rinzler – Tron? – by the dim circuitry drifting further and further down into the depths. He looked over at Quorra and she tapped a button. The passenger's cockpit opened.

Sam hitched himself onto the side of the jet so he could roll out like his scuba instructor had taught him. "Keep the engine running."

The light from the side of the I/O tower helped him navigate lower as he swam strongly down. He had to fight an up-current and his chest started up with a familiar tightness. He wondered why he had to worry about air in a digital environment but couldn't ignore the minor-but-escalating-burn as his lungs attempted to pull more oxygen in, and fought to keep his pace steady as he approached Rinzler at his swift pace. He fumbled for his arm before he was able to turn him around and get a grip around his chest.

Then he kicked up and swam desperately with the current for the break in the water. He wondered if programs could suffocate. Rinzler's circuits were bright against the black of his light suit; would they dim before derezzing if Rinzler--

He tried to ignore the thought as he continued kicking up and pulling with his free arm. His muscles were burning fiercely now, his chest tight and throat dry and pained with the need to open his mouth, but he could see the surface now and then broke through. _Bliss_. His lungs expanded almost painfully full as he inhaled deeply, but it was good, _so good_.

"Sam!"

Quorra's voice motivated him and rolled onto his back, pulling Rinzler to his chest and clumsily backstroked to the hovering jet. Getting Tron high enough for Quorra to get a good grip on him was awkward, but she was able to pull him up without any signs of stress once she had him.

He bobbed in the dark water and panted for air while Quorra -- he assumed -- secured Rinzler. Her head popped back over the side of the jet after a few minutes.

"Ready?"

Sam ducked under the water and kicked up strongly, thrusting his hand in the air. Quorra caught him firmly around the wrist and hauled him up, moving back around the pilot's seat as soon as Sam was in far enough to get uncomfortably close.

Sam's arms protested the work but he finishes dragging himself into the cockpit and pulled himself back onto the passenger's seat. "How...how is he?"

Quorra looked over her shoulder. The lights of the cockpit controls glinted in bright streaks from her hair and along her shoulders and lit her profile when she looked back at Sam. "I don't know."

Sam didn't know what to say for a long moment, so he just nodded and enjoyed breathing while Quorra got them moving silently over the waters.

"What are we going to do with him when we get there?" Sam asked quietly. "It's not like we can leave him in the jet."

Quorra glanced at Sam and then behind her quickly, to Tron's slumped, silent form. "We take him with us. I know someone who might be willing to take him in so we can investigate."

Sam's eyebrows inched up and her mouth thinned before he could even say anything.

"Not like Zuse. Shaddox is different. He kept his head down. It's how he's survived."

Her tone was sharper than it had been, and Sam frowned as the atmosphere in the jet cooled.

"Do you trust him?" Sam asked. He didn't have to point out how poorly trusting old friends had gone last time.

"He used to be Tron's friend. He won't turn us in."

Sam wanted to ask about the ambiguous wording, but Quorra's uncharacteristic grimness put him off. "OK."

Sam shifted in the seat, lifting some of the pressure from aches he didn't remember acquiring and watched the lights of Tron City approach, uncomfortably aware of how much he really didn't know about this world and its history.

Quorra made a minor adjustment and their bearing shifted. "We'll have to set down in the borderlands."

Sam frowned, trying to remember if he'd heard of that before. "Where?"

"The border between the city and the Outlands," Quorra said, jaw easing and shoulders lowering slightly as she relaxed. "The more level area we landed in after I broke you out of the gamegrid. It's risky, but I know a place we should be safe to land. Any further out with Rinzler is impractical."

 _Rinzler_...Sam looked behind him again, but the security program was still apparently unconscious. His helmet reflected distorted versions of the lights off of the dashboard. "Yeah, OK."

The journey stretched out a lot longer when he wasn't shooting Black Guard out of the sky. He looked behind them after several minutes, relieved to find the portal still a bright beacon against the tumultuous sky.

The descent wasn't as steep as the ascent had been, but not by much. Sam found himself bracing against the floor and glanced back to see Tron leaning heavily against the restraining safety belts. They leveled abruptly, followed by a surprisingly smooth set down. "Thank God I don't get motion sick..."

"What?" Quorra asked, unhooking her belt.

"Nothing," Sam said, doing the same. "It's not important. How far out of the city are we?"

"A quarter-cycle's walk, carrying him," Quorra said, tapping the key to open the hatch.

Sam twisted around in the seat and pressed Rinzler back so he could reach the pad controlling his safety belt. Quorra climbed out of the jet first, giving Sam room to drag Rinzler forward and push him into the pilot's seat long enough to maneuver his legs over the side.

"Yeah, this isn't weird at all," Sam muttered, getting his hands under Rinzler's arms and lifting him high enough to hitch him over the side. Then it was an awkward juggling match of trying to go fast enough that his arms didn't completely give out, and needing to figure out where the hell to put his legs that ended with him kneeling sideways and leaning out of the cockpit, dangling Rinzler down from arms that were really not happy with the weight.

"Got him!" Quorra shouted, and Sam didn't waste a minute for concern before letting him go.

He sat breathing for a minute before worry over Clu's potential plans motivated him to drag himself over the edge of the jet and drop. A flash of fear struck him the instant after he let go of the side since he hadn't checked Quorra was clear, then he hit the ground and his knees collapsed, sending him down to the dirt.

"Sam!" Quorra shouted.

Sam heard the tell-tale low-to-nothing hum and thud as the jet settled slowly down onto the ground and then Quorra was tugging him up onto his knees. "I'm fine, I'm fine," Sam said immediately, but took her hand when she offered it. His thighs trembled as he stood. "Sorry, it's been a really long day."

Quorra's eyes stayed wide and Sam smiled. "It's fine, really. We don't have time for this anyway, right?" He swallowed, turned around and ducked down to scoop up the baton. "Let's get...Tron and head out."

Quorra bit her lip but followed him to Rinzler's prone form. Sam tucked the baton under one of his thigh-plates and then froze, a hint of memory tickling.

_The fear of being hunted, chased down like an animal. Salvation bursting through a wall. Destroying the most persistent pursuer's light cycle. Relief becoming incredulity as he pulled a second baton from a thigh holster and continued pursuit without pause._

"Sorry, man," Sam muttered and quickly groped along his thigh. "Yes!"

"Sam?"

Sam held up the baton in explanations, then tossed it to her. "Rinzler had that extra baton, remember? He had two light cycles and two jets. I guess he replaced the cycle we trashed in the games. We can ride once we're close enough."

"Great!" Quorra grinned. "Uh...why don't I take him?"

Sam looked at Rinzler. His helmeted head was lolling forward and still cleared the top of Quorra's head.

Quorra rolled her eyes. "I'm stronger than I look, remember?"

Sam frowned at that, but it was true. "Are you sure?"

Quorra nodded. "Help me get him over my shoulder."

"...right," Sam said, ignoring the blow to his masculinity.

~

Sam ended up riding double with Rinzler when they hit the edge of the Grid. Quorra was strong, but she didn't have the reach to make riding with him work.

Sam called up the light cycle from the baton, not even pausing at the retro design this time, and then it was an awkward push-and-pull, _hold him steady while I get his legs around yours_ affair, with Sam leaning down, pressing his chest to Rinzler’s back to keep him still and thinking, _there isn't a therapist in the world equipped to handle today. Thanks for those keys, Alan._

The extra weight didn't affect the cycle's handling, thankfully, but Sam was extremely aware of Rinzler between his legs, his feet locked between Sam's legs and the cycle. He was probably hyper-aware, but he couldn't fully relax when Rinzlercould wake up at any moment and potentially send them both flying on accident.

The streets were empty of Black Guard or Recognizers. It was good for them, but a bad sign if the Armada was still on the move. It was almost a relief to see a small cluster when he followed Quorra around a corner.

Quorra recalled her cycle and had her disc out immediately, while the Guard were just turning away from some movement in the intersection while Sam was forced to ease to a stop and stumble to the ground, still holding Rinzler.

He quickly lowered him the rest of the way to the ground and rolled him to his side, eyes locked on Quorra's fight. 

"Wait here," he mumbled to Rinzler’s unconscious body as he undocked his disc and angled for a clear target. He had a moment to realize the stupidity of that order, then the guards noticed him and the distraction gave Quorra an opening to derez one. The second turned to look and Sam flung his disc. The guard dodged the initial pass and sent his own out, which Sam dove to avoid. He tracked the return, but his own rebound clipped the program through the throat, a small spatter of pixels followed by the explosive dispersal of deresolution.

Quorra darted forward past the derezzing guard, past the building shadowing them and into the lit square.

Sam bolted after her, snapping up his disc midair, casting his eyes over the square quickly, then froze as he realized Quorra was aiming for a black and orange program. " _Clu_?"

The program was standing over a prone program, turning to look at the intruders. Quorra was already moving to rescue the white-lit program and Sam scanned the rest of the square in time to see a Black Guard disappear in a burst of pixels under a red disc held by--

"Tron?!" 

_What the fuck?_ Sam thought, staring at the program with wide-eyes. Tron paused briefly, meeting his stare, then darted toward the fight Quorra had engaged with Clu. Sam blinked, looking after him and focusing on the action.

Quorra was engaging Clu, but his admin authority made him difficult to fight, even for an ISO. Still, her efforts distracted his attention for Tron to come in behind him and deliver a surgical strike to his disc-port. He collapsed, dropping Quorra and his own disc both as he slumped to the ground like his power had been cut. Sam looked from the fallen program to the one he'd been hassling earlier, and didn't feel anything at all when he found his father's face staring at the admin with a deep frown.

"...Flynn?" Quorra asked, voice shaking and hoarse. Sam looked back to her slowly. Her hands were shaking and she hadn't put up her disc. She didn't seem to realize she was holding it.

"Yeah...hey, thanks for the help," the program on the ground said, voice familiar. The world began to tilt.

"Of course," Quorra said blankly. "But...Flynn, _what happened_?"

The program looked around her at Tron and started to rise. Sam found himself taking a step forward automatically, but Tron had already offered a hand.

"I don't know, man," the program muttered, accepting Tron's help to pull himself to his feet and dusting himself off. He sounded like he was trying for a casual tone but his voice was shaking and his eyes tightened when he looked down at Clu's prone figure. "He came out of nowhere and attacked."

Quorra shook her head. "No, I mean. At the tower, Flynn. _Reintegration_. What...?"

The two programs both turned and stared at her. After a minute, the one that looked like Clu -- like his father -- spoke, though it was only a dumb, "huh?"

"Quorra," Sam heard himself say, drawing their attention. The three glanced his way but he locked eyes with the ISO. "We shouldn't leave him alone."

Quorra frowned, mouth opening and Sam noticed the programs exchanging looks between them. "No, it's fine. I'll bring him." He turned on his heel and walked back the way they'd come, feeling oddly light-headed as the world spun around him.

He couldn't carry Rinzler like Quorra had, and trying made his shoulders ache abominably. He ended up dragging him backwards into the square, stopped once they were out of the building's shadow and dropped to sit beside him.

"...Sam?" Quorra asked. Sam looked up at her, head cocked. She frowned. "What's wrong?"

Sam licked his lips, trying to hold onto the empty feeling even as he felt like he was being pushed slowly toward a cliff. "I'm good." He thought about saying something about their plan, but thinking pushed him closer to the approaching chasm.

The new program stepped forward. "Did you say Sam?"

Quorra blinked and Sam looked up curiously.

"...right," the program said, frowning faintly.

Sam shrugged after a minute of silent staring and looked back at Quorra. "We can go whenever you're ready."

Quorra blinked. "Sam..." her eyes flicked to the Flynn-program. "Don't you think...?"

Sam cocked his head. "What?" he glanced at the program and smiled faintly. "I mean, it's great that there's another program floating around with Dad's face that _isn’t_ a genocidal dictator, but is now really the time?"

Quorra's eyes were wide. "He...he isn't a program, Sam."

Sam froze, then forced himself to laugh. "What do you mean?"

Quorra licked her lips. "I can tell User from program."

Sam swallowed, his throat painfully dry as it contracted. "What are you saying?" he asked. His vision was growing blurry from a sudden crushing exhaustion. "Sorry, it's been a hell of a night...I spent half of it in jail before I even got here, so..."

Quorra crouched down beside him. "This is _Flynn._ Your father."

"Hey, wait a _min_ \-- seriously, you did say _Sam_?"

Sam's chest felt tight. "Quorra, you can't be serious. This can't be Dad. Dad was older. And after Reintegration – "

"He and Clu were gone," Quorra murmured, setting her hand lightly on his shoulder and twisting her neck to look back at Clu. "That Clu doesn't feel exactly the same when I ping him, but this is _definitely_ Flynn. Just...Flynn when we met, not..."

"When _we_ met," Sam offered automatically, and then shook his head. "This can't be possible. I mean. Even in the Grid, time exists. That's why Dad looked like Guiness' Kenobi. How could we _be_ here?"

Quorra shook her head. "I don't..."

" _Sam_?"

Sam looked up slowly. The man -- his father? -- looked at him intently and Sam couldn't deny the familiarity. This was his Dad, the one who'd disappeared for 20 years. He was familiar in a way the old man hadn't been and Sam couldn't blink or look away as tears filled his eyes and overflowed onto his cheeks.

"Sam _Flynn._ "

"Yeah," Sam whispered.

Flynn stumbled forward, eyes locked on his face. " _God, you look like Jordan…_ "

 _Oh, God,_ Sam thought, eyes slamming shut, forcing more tears swiftly down his cheeks to drip from off of his jaw as he remembered his Gram telling him that so many times before she died.

"We don't have time for this," another voice interjected, and Sam latched onto it.

Tron. The original, uncorrupted Tron, apparently. Sam looked at him, ignoring the pressure of Quorra's hand and the confused, stricken look on his father's face. "You're right." Tron looked at him and Sam nodded. "We don't know what's going on, but Clu obviously had plans. We probably don't want to be here any longer than we have to be."

Tron nodded shortly, though his eyes gaze shifted briefly to the unconscious, discless program beside Sam, four squares shining on his chest. Sam leaned up on his legs, kneeling and Tron snapped his attention back to their safety.

"Let's go," Tron muttered.

"The arcade?" Flynn suggested, leaning that way.

"No," Sam said immediately, drawing looks from everyone. "Too predictable, and Clu knows about it. I got picked up there.” Tron nodded thoughtfully, eyes gazing distantly at nothing Sam could see. “We need somewhere anonymous, then: that will be our best defense until we know the extent of Clu's treachery."

Sam pushed himself to his feet while Tron thought and looked at Quorra curiously. She shrugged and shook her head. Maybe he was scanning?

Tron's eyes lit up with a faint blue sheen, staring blindly at a wall. "There's a supply depot in this sector," he murmured after a moment, and the blue sheen cleared. He looked at Flynn. "It's small, used mainly for the local businesses. It'll do."

"Sounds good, man," Flynn muttered. He looked at Sam and hesitated. After a moment, he turned to Quorra and nodded at the program on the street. "Can you carry him?"

Quorra nodded firmly and Sam ducked down to grab an arm. They'd already figured out how to get his weight properly distributed once, so it was short work heaving him back onto Quorra's shoulder in a fireman's hold. It still looked ridiculous, more so now that Sam had started coming down from the adrenalin of the last sixteen hours. Rinzler's arms hung low enough to brush her calves.

Sam looked away with a small wince and caught his father doing the same, and they had a slightly surreal moment of shared discomfort before Sam remembered his father's face, older, bearded, shouting at him to leave. He looked at Tron, who didn't seem even slightly ridiculous with Clu over his own shoulder. "Ready when you are."

"This way."

Sam followed him, keeping an eye on Quorra and her burden as Tron started back the way they'd come, then took a sharp left down an alley. After that, it was a confusing mess of turns Sam lost track of after right, left, second left, right, which ended at an unremarkable door Tron keyed open.

"Did you have the password or did you override?" Sam asked curiously as Quorra entered behind Tron.

Tron glanced back, brow furrowing even as he set Clu down purposefully on the ground. "I have access to all of the override codes in the city. I don't have to _hack_ anything."

Sam's eyes widened and he held up his hands. "Whoa, sorry, my bad."

Tron's eyes narrowed but he didn't have a chance to ask his question as Flynn slipped around Sam once the door was closed. "OK, now we need to have a meeting of the minds here. What's going on? Are you really my...my son?"

Sam stiffened, eyes flying to Quorra in a moment of panic, which he supposed was only fair since she'd been the one to take care of most of the things causing him to panic in the last eight hours. "I, uh...I don't know..."

Flynn -- it was easier to think of him as Flynn -- dragged a hand through his hair and sighed. "Look, man, this isn't the time to be wishy-washy. You're not a program, and I don't _think_ you're an ISO. You look like my wife, but you're, oh, roughly a decade or two older than _my son,_ who I just left at his grandparents' house. Just...tell me what's going on."

Sam looked at him silently for a moment and then he started to look away, to find Quorra.

"No!" Flynn said, cutting a hand through the air. Sam jumped, turning immediately back to Flynn. "Don't look away, just... _tell me_. Who are you, really? What was all that about Reintegration?"

Sam licked his lips and took a painful breath. "I really don't know. This could be one of Clu's traps--"

"I don't think it is," Quorra murmured quietly from the side.

Sam closed his eyes. "Right. My name is Sam Flynn. My dad disappeared without a trace in 1989 after putting me to bed."

"Huh."

Sam opened his eyes at the grunt, unable to deny his need to see his father, the one he remembered, but Flynn just cocked his head and Sam swallowed. "Earlier tonight, Alan came over to my place--"

"Alan Bradley?" Flynn asked, brow furrowing a little.

"Yeah," Sam said, a whisper of a smile on his face. "He'd gotten a page from your office at the arcade, and...I don't know. He told me to check it out."

"...OK," Flynn muttered. "Weird. Why didn't he just go?"

Sam laughed a little. "He, uh, he's always believed you were coming back," he explained quietly, looking down. "After a while, you know, I...I didn't. And things just...with that and Encom...the board was going a little crazy, and they've been trying to push him out for a while. I never let them, but I didn't really do anything else to help. I guess...he was just tired of doing everything on his own."

"...ah," Flynn murmured.

Sam coughed and looked up from the floor briefly. Flynn was looking at the wall a few feet from Sam. "I found your office behind the TRON game, and activated the laser."

Flynn interrupted. "How long had it been? You must be...what, 25?"

Sam smiled faintly. "27."

Flynn's brow furrowed. "20 years...heavy. What next?"

Sam shrugged. "I freaked out--" he started, then Flynn held up a hand.

"Hey, why was the power still on?"

Sam blushes. "I, uh. I don't have a lot of bills, so I kept the automatic drafts for the electricity and water going."

"From before? You were seven," Flynn said, blinking.

Sam ducked his head. "Yeah, well, at first it wasn't a big deal, you know. People expected you to come back, or be found or whatever. By the time I was ten, people were starting to doubt, but me and Alan convinced them. I never...I could never cancel them, even after I stopped believing."

"Oh." Flynn shifted, looking away from Sam briefly. "Well. Thanks."

 _Yeah, glad I didn't accidentally kill you and the world you built_ , Sam thought, forcing an uncomfortable smile. "No problem."

"Right," Flynn said, waving a hand. "Sorry. You freaked out..."

Sam latched onto the subject change. "Yeah, I ran out into the streets, got picked up by a Recognizer and thrown into the games."

"Sounds familiar," Flynn murmured. "I take it you got out?"

Sam nodded to Quorra. "She busted me out. Saved my ass."

Flynn looked over and smiled faintly. "Thanks. You're...Quorra, right? Thanks."

"Yes," Quorra said quietly. "You saved my life, after the Purge. Saving your son was the least I could do."

Sam shifted, uncomfortable with the topic and remembered Tron -- _Rinzler_ , it would be better to think of him as Rinzler, for now at least. Less confusing. "Hey, can we get some of that energy? Maybe it'll help him wake up."

Flynn blinked, confusion chased shortly by enlightenment. Tron seemed more curious than anything as he looked from Sam to the helmeted program stretched out on the ground bearing his own mark.

Quorra frowned. "Sam...I don't know if that's such a good idea."

"Why?" Sam cocked his head. "I mean, I know he was - is? - Rinzler, but he obviously broke through Clu’s brainwashing or reprograming in the end. You saw what happened. If he hadn't intervened," Sam looked over at the unconscious admin program, remembering the approaching light jet and the controls jamming, their own jet already badly damaged. "Clu would've had us before we ever got to the platform."

"...I guess," Quorra tilted her head.

"Whoa, wait," Flynn interrupted. "Who's Rinzler? Isn't that Tron?"

Sam and Quorra looked at each other dubiously and then Sam sighed. "I don't know the whole story."

Quorra's forehead wrinkled faintly as she glared at him and then she sighed, face relaxing. "Originally, on this day, when Clu surprised you, you barely escaped with your life. Tron fought for you and was...taken."

Flynn's eyes widened progressively and Quorra nodded. "It...it wasn't a good time for us. Clu repurposed...so many. The resistance existed, but it was so fractured..." She bit her lip and looked between Flynn and Sam. "When Sam got into the Grid, it broke the stalemate you had with Clu. We were trying to leave as you and Clu Reintegrated. Do you think that explains why we're here now?"

Flynn shrugged. "I...I guess it could," he murmured. "I mean, if the Reintegration somehow affected the Portal, or corrupted the data, maybe it reset to...the last restore point."

Sam swallowed. Flynn seemed intrigued by the idea, but Sam remembered the older version of his father's face staring at him around Clu through the wind at the mouth of the portal. If the data had been corrupted, what did that mean for that version of his father? And what did it mean for him and Quorra, now? Why couldn't they both leave ?

"I was repurposed?"

Sam blinked, tearing his eyes away from the strange double image of the father he remembered and the one who'd just sacrificed himself. Tron was strangely young, now that he took the time to look at him. Younger than Sam could really remember Alan, but then...his grandparents had always looked older than their time, too.

_Aw, dad..._

"Yes," Quorra admitted, looking down at the unconscious program. She seemed to waffle between wide-eyed pity and tense caution. It was like Rinzler was an abused dog she wanted to feed but suspected would rip her hand off.

"It took some time to break you. It was some cycles before Rinzler was introduced as Clu's enforcer. In the mean time, there was the Resistance. Many believed you were involved, but... there was...unrest. We lost almost everything." Quorra bit her lip, staring forward. "Sometime in the next few cycles, Abraxas -- the corrupted program that attacked the ceremony -- attacked Arjia City on Clu's orders. Might attack it still, if he's already set that in motion."

Sam looked back at Clu's slumped form. His face didn't look anything like the grimace he'd worn as Flynn had initiated Reintegration, but that was all Sam could think for a moment. Clu's expression now wasn't even the still, alien lack that even Quorra's face had been when she'd been forcibly shut down, but something mobile and feverish. Sam wondered if he could dream in whatever state Tron had put him in.

"Yes, we will have to wake him in a safe room and extract his plans from him."

Sam's eyes widened. "Extract?" he asked, eyebrows arching. The way Tron said that sounded a lot like torture. "Uh, or we could check his disc or wake Rinzler up and see what he remembers, since he's on our side again?"

Tron's gaze shifted to his doppelganger in the black helm, head tilted as he eyed his bluish white circuitry.

Sam wondered if he was performing a threat analysis calculation, and if so, what parameters he was basing it off of.

"I don't know if that's such a great idea," Flynn admitted just then, calling Sam's focus. "What exactly happened?"

Sam shared a look with Quorra, who shrugged. Sam sighed. "Uh, well...we were basically racing to the portal in a light jet. Dad was piloting and Quorra had the forward mounted guns. I had the rear guns, and we were basically running for our lives. Rinzler nearly took us out before he just...stopped. He pulled back, and Clu was there and we nearly died right there, but..." Sam looked at Rinzler, remembering that confused elation as he'd seen his jet ram Clu out of the sky, both jets disappearing in a shattered shower of pixels raining down into the Sea of Simulation.

"He saved us," Quorra murmured. "He saved us and fell into the Sea."

"The Sea of Simulation?" Flynn asked, eyebrows arching before he apparently decided to refocus. "OK, and how is he here then?"

Quorra shrugged. "We fished him out."

"Programs can't exactly just take a swim in the Sea of Simulation," Flynn pointed out.

Sam looked at him. "I dive back home," he offered. "It wasn't easy, but...we couldn't just leave him."

"No, no, of course not," Flynn muttered absently. "Wild, man. Keep going."

Sam rolled his eyes and then felt bad as he saw Quorra's confusion, remembering her descriptions of his father as being some kind of wise, patient guru, something this Flynn wasn't exactly exuding. He picked up the story to give Quorra a minute. "Quorra and I were in the process of rematerializing when Dad – uh, you? – initiated Reintegration, like we said. Everything was crazy, bright and...I don't know. We were getting more solid one minute and then the next I felt like I was--"

 _Filament and air, the space between breathing and needing to breathe._ "...lighter."

Flynn nodded slowly. "Huh. OK, well, let me take a look at his disc, at least, see if I can figure out how Clu repurposed him. At least make sure he's 100% back to normal."

Sam winced. "He, uh, doesn't have it."

Flynn froze. "What?"

Sam shrugged and crouched down, lifting Rinzler's shoulder to bear his empty docking port before lowering his back once more to the ground. "We fought before he broke Clu's brainwashing. That was the last time I saw his disc."

Flynn's forehead creased with the strength of his frown. "You fought?"

Sam shrugged and tried not to think about the burn of the cut over his shoulder, of Rinzler kicking Quorra when she was down.

"...I don't know, man," Flynn said, looking back to Rinzler. "I don't like the idea of waking up a program that might be on the border, you know?"

Tron was nodding in response to this wisdom, but Sam's gut started to sink at the ambiguous wording. "OK, so we fit him with another disc and then you check him out."

"A program can't successfully pair with an Identity Disc without interaction," Quorra said quietly.

"What does _that_ mean?" Sam frowned, thinking of all of the times he'd made copies of files or software without opening it. But that had been from the outside. A lot of things were different, outside the Grid.

Quorra looked at Sam with a small frown. "We can't fit him with a disc without waking him up, Sam."

Sam looked from her to Flynn, pausing briefly on Tron. None of them looked pleased. "So we wake him up," Sam said slowly. "He doesn't have his weapons, _you_ ," to Flynn, "can flex a little muscle if he tries to get away or something..."

Flynn cocked his head, eyes narrowing curiously. "Why is this so important to you?" Sam blinks, unable to process the shock of the question immediately. "Seriously, man, I mean...you've only known him for a cycle or two, he was mostly your enemy it sounds like...I don't get it."

Sam knew he was gaping. He could feel his jaw hanging loosely, his eyes painfully wide. His stomach twisting with some reaction he couldn't quite name. After a long moment of staring, waiting for Flynn to take it back, he finally choked out, " _What_?"

Flynn shrugged. "Why _not_ just deactivate him?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't understand," he admitted, looking at Tron and then back to Flynn. " _It's Tron._ He's been your _best friend_ since before I was born."

Flynn nodded. "Yeah...OK, maybe, but. That's not Tron anymore, is it? Not exactly."

 _Is he serious right now?_ "He's got the right to live! What kind of question is that? He -- he sacrificed himself to save us -- _you_ \-- and I should be on board with either keeping him out indefinitely, or straight up _killing_ him?"

Flynn frowned. "I'm not saying that at all." His voice was sharp. "But I think you need to step back and take a look at the big picture. He's one program, and we've got..." his eyes darted to Clu and his mouth tightened. " _I've_ got a _lot_ of work to do to prevent what sounds like genocide."

Sam nodded slowly. "Yeah, I get that." He looked between Rinzler and Clu and shook his head. "There has to be another way. We shouldn't have to kill or torture _anyone_."

Flynn frowned. "Calm down, man," he said, closing the distance between them and clasping Sam's shoulder, tugging him up. "They're programs. We can fix any damage we do."

A sound from behind Sam broke through his horror. _Quorra_... "That's not. _What the hell_ , Dad?"

Flynn shrugged but at least he had the decency to look away, conscience finally pricking him maybe. "I don't mean...it's not like I want to hurt anyone, but we're on a timetable here."

Sam started to shake his head at the same time Tron nodded, and his head whipped around to stare at the program with wide eyes. "You can't be serious," he said distantly. "Just. Fuck, take Clu's disc, slap on a patch that compels him to answer or something, figure out what our next move needs to be and do it. We'll handle Rinzler."

Flynn's brow furrowed. "I'm, uh, still not sure--"

"He deserves better than that!" Sam interrupted. "He saved your life over and over again for nothing, he nearly _died_! You don't get to act like--"

Flynn frowned, shoulders stiffening, and Sam realized he was almost shouting and backed off. Apparently, he wasn't as over that repressed anger thing as he and his therapist had thought. He forced himself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. "His life matters. Who he is, right now, that...that has to matter." _To me, even if it doesn't to you._

Flynn nodded slowly, still frowning, but head cocked thoughtfully now. Then he glanced at Tron. "What do you think?"

Sam looked over too, caught Tron's bright blue gaze briefly, and felt his cheeks heating as he realized he'd watched him essentially throw a temper tantrum. But that was a minor concern Sam shoved to the back of his mind as he followed Tron's pensive gaze to the unconscious Rinzler and leaned forward. "There are ways to get what we need without hurting anyone, right?"

Tron continued to stare at him, his focus uncomfortably intense. After a moment, he nodded. Tension seeped out of Sam's shoulders. "Good."

Tron's eyes narrowed faintly, a thoughtful expression for a moment -- or maybe he was doing advanced calculations on how they were going to beat down a potential army of sentry programs, Sam wasn't sure -- before he turned to look at Flynn. "How long will it take you to create such a patch?"

"Hm...give me a minute," Flynn muttered, kneeling beside Clu and rolling him onto his side to get at his disc.

Sam shook his head, beyond lost now. This was the man he remembered, the one he'd known -- but not really.

 _I'm always on your team,_ Sam remembered the tilt of his father's head as he'd watched him pull out and not quite look back at his son. Just like he'd been not quite looking at Clu this whole time. Like the older version, looking around Clu to Sam and not really seeing either of them. Not understanding how much both of them were being torn apart.

 _I don't have time for this._ Sam dropped down to kneel beside Rinzler, quickly taking in the low but steady glow of his circuitry and otherwise at a loss for what to do. He didn't know how to use whatever powers he had here as a User and Rinzler's disc was long gone, anyway.

"Energy might help him, like you said," Quorra murmured. "Here." 

Sam craned his neck to look and then Quorra was leaning down to meet him, handing him a slim, glowing tube. The container was cool, almost as smooth as glass, not quite right for the real thing. It was like the glass Zuse had given him at End of Line, except there was a frosted, semi-transparent seal over the top which retracted when Sam thumbed the edge. 

"Uh, should I just..." He waved his free hand toward Rinzler's face and Quorra nodded, shifting to kneel at his head, one hand on his shoulder to brace and the other sliding under his neck to tilt his head back.

Rinzler's helmet slid back, revealing a face that could've been Tron's if it wasn't for the faint glow of lines along his cheekbone and temple, stretching like fine filaments up onto his brow.

"OK then," Sam muttered. _This isn't weird at all_ , he thought as he tipped the tube. The angle wasn't right at first, too tentative, and he lost a third of the liquid down the side and over his fingers in a cool, fizzing trail that ended splattering down over Rinzler's face and throat before dripping to the floor.

They lost another rivulet down the side of Rinzler's face when his mouth filled up and Sam quickly rubbed his throat with his free hand, ignoring the sticky trails of spilled energy. His circuits seemed to brighten as they got the rest of the tube into him. "More, do you think?"

Quorra shrugged. "I'm not exactly an expert." She lowered her hand, then slid it from under Rinzler's head. "Let's wait and see."

Flynn waved them over. “It isn't pretty, but I put together a patch that lets us bypass his encryption and access his base files without directives. We can get to the bottom of this while he's out of it.” 

Clu looked like he was doped up when Sam looked him over. He tried to ignore it. What were their options? He forced himself to remember the ISOs this would save and that the only other way to potentially confirm the time-line would be doing this to Rinzler, who seemed to be the only true victim here.

 _Yeah, that's not going to happen,_ Sam told himself firmly. _Anyway, dad wouldn't do that to Tron._ He forced away the recent memories of Flynn treating Rinzler like...anyone but Tron, anyone but the old friend from his stories and focused on Clu. White circuitry brightened slowly under Flynn's attention, starts and jerks as different macros woke up and checked in with the new directives.

Flynn glanced at Tron, sharing a look between them that seemed to say something, and then Flynn shrugged. "Identify yourself, program."

Sam jerked at the stark similarity, recent memories springing to mind in startling clarity. Quorra shifted so her arm brushed Sam's. It seemed only natural for him to turn his arm and brush his fingers over the edge of her palm. This was hard for her too. These were her people, in danger, people she'd already lost once; her brothers and sisters -- if she thought of them like that, God, there was so much he didn't know and he kept banging against that widening chasm of ignorance. 

Quorra looked at him and Sam turned in response to the movement, tipping his head and trying on a small smile. Quorra's eyes crinkled and grew faintly damp in response, and her hand flexed like she wanted to respond but wasn't sure how. Sam slipped his fingers into her palm and gripped her hand firmly. She blinked and immediately returned his grip, her tiny smile growing.

Sam ducked his head once and then, still holding tightly to her hand, looked back to Flynn sitting, legs folded and crossed, beside Clu.

Only... "Whoa," Sam muttered, lips pursing.

"Clu, provide a list of all actions executed within the last...huh, let's start with the last 5 cycles." Sam's eyes widened even as Clu's eyes narrowed in apparent thought, giving his face a slightly more familiar cast.

Then began talking. And talking. And talking.

Sam gaped, but Flynn only looked bored, not surprised. "Is this normal?" he whispered to Quorra.

She shrugged. "I don't know, we weren't exactly on speaking terms at any point," she said quietly. "It does seem like a lot for one program to process."

Sam blinked and returned his attention to the interrogation. Clu's list of functions stretched out for long minutes, and didn't seem to be winding down. Sam tilted his head. "Do you think he needs a drink?" he asked Quorra quietly. She cocked her head and he shrugged. "Do programs' throats even get dry?"

"Tron," Flynn said, drawing Sam's eyes back his way, only to catch another fleeting look of silent communication between the two. Tron moved to one of the short stacks of black crates and tapped it, derezzing the top long enough to pull a tube like the one Sam and Quorra had made a mess of over Rinzler.

 _OK then,_ Sam thought, and decided not to talk about anything with Quorra unless he was sure they were alone, since apparently he wasn't as quiet as he'd thought.

Flynn handed Clu the energy and then the data dump continued after Clu had dutifully consumed the energy. Sam shifted and glanced at Quorra from the corner of his eye: she seemed to be firmly focused on Clu's commands, and considering one of them might have instigated the genocide of her people, Sam couldn't really blame her. He, on the other hand, was feeling incredibly useless in this endeavor, and the implications of their actions weighed unpleasantly at him. He glanced around the room and then shifted back to duck behind Quorra and kneel beside Rinzler.

Flynn wouldn't threaten to erase Rinzler if he was functioning. There was a difference between the abstract potential to do it and the actual reality of killing a sentient being that hadn't sunk in yet.

"How do I wake you up," Sam muttered, frowning faintly. _Dad used Quorra's disc to fix her arm...the damaged code, he said...but he didn't need a disc at the end. He just...touched the ground? Maybe there's a backdoor that hooks directly into the code?_

Sam tentatively touched his fingers to Rinzler's neck. It seemed a little less personal than grabbing the guy's face, and there was no other visible skin. Feeling dumb, but having no other ideas on how to hack a program that felt like a human he could touch, Sam tried nonetheless. [[Login: backdoor.]]

Nothing happened for a minute, then he had the same reaching feeling he got when he walked into a room and realized he'd forgotten what he was looking for. Or not exactly, it was like...he was reaching for something and was nearly there, fingertips so close he could almost feel it.

There was a feeling of pressure relieved, a block removed, and then Sam sank into something like a prolonged suffocation. He could feel his heart rate speed up, his breath coming faster, and yet at the same time he could feel that, he felt like he was trying to breathe through a thick comforter in the middle of a wet July.

He forced himself to think through the dichotomy, and then realized he was hearing, or...not _hearing_ , but still somehow perceiving a steady flash, like somebody tapping his arm in a crowd.

[[Admin Patch .0100110 determined suspicious. Administrative permission required to revert to last successful update. Allow: yes / no.]]

[[Yes.]] Sam thought, automatically, and then realized that might not have been the best idea -- what if that patch was whatever woke him up? -- but it was too late, he could feel the fuzz-and-foam restrictions fading away in efficient lines of data.

It was fascinating. Rinzler was cleaning himself up.

[[Administrative direction required: Retain threat database? Yes / no.]]

 _In for a penny_ , Sam thought. [[Yes.]]

The clearing slowed down. He "saw" segments of code scanned, which was a strange combination between watching something under a spotlight and feeling the edge of the light like heat on his fingers. Some lines were reintegrated into the slowly-assembling whole while others were compressed and pushed to the side.

 _Quarantined? Deleted._ , Sam thought. _This is so incredibly_ _ **cool**_. He just hoped it didn't kill either of them.

If Rinzler heard -- or perceived, or whatever -- the thought, he didn't acknowledge it as the methodical scan continued. After a while, Sam realized he was breathing at a normal rate again. The panic of his impulsive choices had started to fade as nothing fed it.

The scan came to an end eventually and all of the valuable code had been integrated or quarantined for repair. Then the spotlight shifted to the rejected code, a pile of angry red pixels, almost transparent.

 _Maybe that's automatic when a program is...rectified_ , Sam thought, stumbling briefly as he tried to remember the term the Sentry had used when he'd been first caught.

[[Administrative direction required: Confirm permanent delete? Yes / no.]]

[[ [Yes.] ]]

The request and confirmation took a flash of a breath: much faster than Sam's approval had taken earlier. The data crumbled into strands of sparks of bright dust that quickly became ash and disappeared.

[[Input command.]]

Sam swallowed. [[Identify.]]

[[Rinz -- Tr --]]

Code recently strung together and patched with bits of itself began trembling, straining against the old data. [[Stop!]] Sam ordered as quickly as he could frame the concept, and then flickered through the possible explanations.

[[Input command.]]

 _OK...God, I hope this is the right thing to do._ [[Rename (Rinzler).]]

[[Designation Rinzler acknowledged. Input command.]]

Sam took a deep breath. [[Identify...your purpose.]]

[[Additional input required. Input User designation to confirm permissions.]]

 _Not the worst thing that could've happened_ , Sam thought, and framed a response. It was getting easier and easier. [[User designation SamFlynn.]]

[[Permissions acknowledged. Program designation Rinzler fights for the Users. Primary responsibility SamFlynn. Permission for full activation? yes / no.]]

 _[[Yes.]]_ Sam ordered, beyond relieved with the answer. Then he processed his name in the latter half of the response and jerked back. _"What?!"_ he asked, hand falling away from Rinzler's neck in his surprise.

Rinzler opened his eyes once more to the Grid and immediately took in his surroundings.

Sam stared down, wide-eyed, unable to look away from those intense blue eyes.

"Designation SamFlynn?" Rinzler asked, his voice caught between the corrupted growl he'd heard in the Arena and Tron's clearer tones.

Sam nodded slowly. "You can call me Sam," he offered faintly.

Rinzler tilted his head and finally his eyes shifted away from Sam's. "Why am I sticky?"

"Uh..."

"Sam?"

"Quorra..." Sam said, eyes darting from Rinzler to her. Relief and embarrassment warred for supremacy. Quorra's interruption saved him from answering Rinzler's question -- _oh, I poured half a tube of energy over your face for fun_ \-- but now he had to deal with the part where he'd woken Rinzler up without any input from Flynn. He stood by his decision: Rinzler wasn't going crazy, and if he was back to fighting for the Users -- for Sam? -- then it was good he was awake. They needed all the help they could get and it wouldn't be good for anyone to decommission allies when they could be facing an army.

"Uh, I don't know if you guys were ever formally introduced...Quorra, this is Rinzler. Rinzler, Quorra." _Last time you saw her, you guys kicked each other in the face. What am I doing?_

Quorra's dark eyes were already locked on Rinzler's face intently. For his part, Rinzler was equally cautious as he shifted, got his arms folded up and pushed himself up to sit. After a minute, he nodded shallowly. 

Quorra looked at Sam. "What did you do?"

Sam glanced around her at the main event. Flynn was examining Clu's disc now, flicking through data at a rate Sam couldn't really follow from his distance. He looked back at Quorra and shrugged faintly. "I remembered how Dad sort of...hooked into the Grid manually, you know? Back at End of Line and...at the portal..."

Quorra dipped her head. "I remember," she murmured quietly. "He said it was hooking up to the data directly. He found it harder than manipulating the data by the interface centers and data ports."

"And Identity Discs." Sam's eyes flicked behind her again briefly.

"Yes."

Sam sighed, scrubbing a hand over his head. "Well, I don't know about those other ways. I was completely lost when Dad fixed your arm, but I was able to push through the blockage in Rinzler here. We cleaned up the code Clu changed and deleted most of the patched information."

"Ah..." Quorra shifted for a minute and then crouched down beside him. "You had no issues containing your commands?" she asked, head cocking to the side.

Sam blinked. "Uh...not really. I mean, at the end I sort of jumped the gun a little, but I do that at the keyboard all the time. My fingers are too fast for my better thinking sometimes, you know."

Quorra smiled. "You're very interesting, Sam Flynn."

Sam ducked his head, laughing faintly. "I bet you say that to all the guys you save," he retorted, then deliberately turned to Rinzler, who met his eyes blankly. "Want to test your feet?"

Rinzler hesitated for a moment, brow furrowing faintly before it cleared. "Yes."

Sam nodded and shuffled back on his own knees, then leaned back and got his feet under him. "Ready?" he asked, hand hovering near Rinzler's elbow in case Sam had fucked up his ability to navigate with his amateur efforts.

They rose together, Quorra joining in with a small smile. Then she and Sam waited a moment as Rinzler took a few certain steps away and then pivoted smoothly back. He still moved like a black shark cutting through the light diffusing through the small building, still the predator, but one whose threat only lingered in memory. His expression was mild when he met Sam's eyes.

 _Primary responsibility SamFlynn._ Sam wondered what it meant. "Uh, so – "

Flynn's voice interrupted the question. "Hey, you're awake!"

Rinzler's brow crinkled briefly and then his face went blank as he looked over to the other User.

"Good job, man," Flynn murmured, eyes lingering on Rinzler's face for a minute before he turned back to Clu's disc. "Hold on a sec, we're trying to figure out what we're dealing with in which order."

Rinzler inclined his head a fraction and Sam's stomach clenched. He moved forward, closing the distance between them. "Hey...are you OK?"

Rinzler's gaze remained forward for a moment, though he didn't seem to be staring holes into Flynn anymore, thank God. After a moment, his expression softened and he turned to face Sam. "I appear to be functional, SamFl...Sam, but I do seem to have many memories which require further processing."

 _I'd have a lot to think about too, I guess,_ Sam thought. "That makes sense. Look, we're going to help out the ISOs, but if you need to take a break, use some time to get used to...uh, everything – "

Rinzler interrupted. "That would go against my primary directive."

"It would?" Sam blinked.

"I am to safeguard the system and protect the denizens of the Grid -- Basics, ISOs and Users -- from all threats," Rinzler said quietly, chin lifting a fraction.

 _He's worried we'll try and stop him,_ Sam realized, and immediately said, "Of course you can help," without thinking. But could he really make that promise? He looked over at Flynn and then back to Rinzler and forced a smile. "We'll figure something out."

Rinzler tilted his head and then tensed, head still angled down. He wasn't making that corrupted rumble, but his focus was pretty intense as he reached forward. Sam followed his hand, eyes wide as he struggled with the need to pull back as Rinzler reached for his shoulder. He forced himself to hold still when Rinzler gently gripped his bicep and framed the cut in Sam's suit with his fingers. The cut he'd made.

"...ah," Sam said quietly, relaxing a little.

"You're nervous," Rinzler said, grip loosening.

Sam licked his lips. "It's not you," he said quietly. Then, because he was a shitty liar and Rinzler's expression had already shifted to something a great deal more dubious, "I mean, it's not just you. Things are pretty crazy in general right now, and...people uh...don't touch me a lot." _That's the truth, at least._ He couldn't help it if there was still a part of him that remembered the incredible beat-down he'd received the first time they'd met.

 _“Damn it!_!” Flynn muttered forcefully, redirecting Sam's attention.

“What's wrong?”

"He's laid plans in for the attack," Flynn muttered, dragging a rough hand through his hair. "We need to move fast." His eyes shifted to the three of them and Sam was struck once more, almost physically, by the strange familiar/unfamiliar feel as he met Flynn's eyes and lifted his chin automatically. "We can split up," Sam offered. "Tell us where to go, give us your overrides and we'll cover twice as much ground."

Flynn cocked his head for a long moment, eyes moving over Sam's face and then Sam watched him give Rinzler and Quorra the same thousand-yard stare before Flynn returned his attention back to Sam. "I guess you and me could--"

"No," Tron said firmly. Flynn blinked and Tron shook his head. "I have not done a full threat analysis on them."

Flynn rolled his eyes and quickly flicked back through Clu's code, then sticking his fingers into it deeply and releasing a whirl of white-stringed data into the teeming sphere of information. "So do it. Sam and I can visit the main hub and you three can go warn Radia and have her get the word out to scatter to the Outlands."

"Flynn. I will not be separating from you until the situation is more stable. You have the choice to stay and allow me to guard you, or leave and return when things are less dangerous."

Sam blinked at the authoritative tone and looked over at Rinzler. "You're kind of bossy, huh?" Rinzler shrugged.

Flynn sighed, catching Sam's attention again. "You're being too stubborn about this," he muttered, docking Clu's disc and then pushing himself to his feet.

"What are we going to do with him?" Sam asked, looking down at Clu. The program looked up mildly, face smoothed of rage and satisfaction both. Sam dropped his eyes.

Flynn tapped his leg and then shook his head. "I need to figure out why this happened. That's going to take a much more in depth look at his code than we had time for."

His tone was tight. Sam wondered if he was a little upset the answer hadn't just been floating along the top to skim up, that he'd actually have to put work into it, and then immediately felt terrible. He was probably justifiably upset and being forced to confront the fact that his friend had betrayed him, and would've done a lot worse. "Right...so we're just going to leave him here?" Sam asked dubiously.

Flynn drew back, brow furrowing in a deep frown. "God, no, can you imagine if someone found him? I can't be sure I've suspended all of his permissions yet with such a quick job." Sam nodded and Flynn glanced back at Tron before sighing. "No, I guess Tron and I will head to the security center and quarantine him first," he muttered. "If I give you a map, do you think you could get to Arjia City--"

"I -- we can show him the way," Quorra interrupted, eyes darting to Rinzler.

Flynn looked at her for a moment, then down at the spot on her arm where her armor lining covered the glowing symbols which identified her as an ISO. "Right. You'll be OK, then?"

Quorra nodded, and Flynn's gaze shifted back to Rinzler and then settled on Sam. They stared at each other for a long moment and Sam forced himself not to look away. Flynn nodded after a moment, like Sam had said something, and then turned to Tron. "You good to carry him?"

Tron rolled his eyes and ducked down to pull Clu easily over his shoulder, then stood up easily. "I think I can manage."

Flynn smirked faintly and waved at Sam. "We'll meet up with you as soon as we can."

He was smiling, but...Sam couldn't really nail down what was bothering him about the expression, so he just nodded and watched them leave.

Quorra shifted beside him and he looked over in time to see her take a deep, bracing breath. "We've got to go to End of Line."

Sam blinked. "What?" he asked, eyes widening. " _Why?_ "

"Originally, a System Monitor and I made it to End of Line to see if he could help us spread the word of Clu's betrayal. He would have, and sent us to try and save Radia. That's why I sent you there. As we were leaving, the Regulator destroyed the club. Many lives were lost."

Sam's instinct said to let Zuse burn. The chaos and insanity when he'd betrayed Sam to Clu had been astronomical, and he'd seen Zuse firing energy bolts into the crowd of panicked programs for no reason. He'd reveled in the violence.

"Please, Sam," Quorra said quietly. "I have to do this."

That settled it. She'd helped him too much to say no to her now. "All right. How far away are we?"

Quorra smiled brightly at him and then cocked her head thoughtfully. “Considering our current coordinates...

"13 _mas_ ," Rinzler interjected.

Quorra looked his way, smile dimming faintly, then turned back to Sam and nodded. "That sounds right."

Sam blinked. "What's a _mas_?"

Quorra hesitated and then grimaced. "The bar is almost as far away from us as it could be," she finally said.

"Right," Sam said, adding another term to the list of stuff he needed to ask his Dad -- _Flynn_ about. "Well, I guess I'm following your lead again."

Quorra smirked and cocked her head. "Are _you_ good with this?" Sam followed her line of sight, turning his head to glance behind him in time to catch a curt nod from Rinzler.

"We intend to evacuate the bar, then?" Rinzler asked. "I cannot calculate a way in which that will be effective."

Quorra shook her head and started for the door. "We're going to stop the Regulator."

Sam thought about that as they left. "That's the monster Clu tried to pilot into the portal, right?"

Rinzler nodded. Quorra looked back and cocked an eyebrow. Sam shrugged. "Sounds good. How do you want to do this?"

Quorra grinned, unholstering her baton. Rinzler glanced down at his empty thigh holster and Sam remembered they'd ended up taking his backups. "Uh..."

"You can ride with me this time," Quorra said.

Rinzler frowned. "This time?"

Sam coughed. "We should go, right?"

~

Quorra's plan had them climbing to End of Line's roof. They managed this by a series of slight protrusions, not wide enough to even be called ledges, really. Sam's heart was pounding and the ache and exhaustion in his muscles had faded with the energy Quorra had remembered to snag on their way out of the warehouse. That was a good thing, considering Sam had been basically belly to the outer wall of a skyscraper, hanging on by his fingers and toes and terror.

That was the sane part of the plan.

"You sure this is gonna work?" Sam asked doubtfully. “I'm not saying I have doubts, but...”

Quorra shrugged. "We beat the odds before," she offered with a grin.

Sam had to smile back, remembering the weightless feeling as they'd cleared impossible gaps together. "True."

"I'm going to get Zuse to spread the word to the other ISOs in the city," Quorra said. "Go meet the Regulator and ping me when you're done. Hurry."

Sam didn't like that at all. "Quorra..."

"I know, Sam," Quorra said, holding up a hand. "But Zuse wasn't always as you saw him. He was once a loyal ally who suffered great losses for my people. That's who he is now."

Sam sighed. "Fine. You're the expert, I guess. Just...be careful, OK?"

Quorra smiled and started running, drawing her grappling hook. "Always am!" she shouted, leaping off of the edge of the roof. A second later, Sam heard the launch of the hook and relaxed as glass shattering followed shortly after.

Rinzler cocked his head and Sam laughed ruefully. "She's something else, huh?"

Rinzler nodded immediately. "She's resourceful," he said, and lifted his baton. "Ready?"

Sam nodded. "Don't lose me. I'm following your lead on this one."

Rinzler ducked his head, mouth quirking. "I'll try not to." 

Sam held up his baton in response and then followed a half second behind Rinzler's sprint to the edge and then, just like he'd done at Encom, spread his arms wide to control his fall so his jet wouldn't rez half on top of Rinzler's. The light suit was even better at cutting the wind resistance than his flight suit had been.

When he finally activated the jet with Rinzler, it rezzed into place around him, fitting around his body in motion and corrected his posture gently. Sam had a brief moment to appreciate the complexity of the algorithms required to calculate that – and wonder where his father had acquired the code, since it didn't seem like something that would mesh with his personal programming interest – before he was pulling up out of the steep dive and angling after Rinzler's streak of light.

After a moment, he became aware of something like a sub-audible buzz and had time to think _what the hell?_ before text scrolled through the air in front of him. [[Acknowledge program ID Rinzler.]]

The buzz returned and Sam shrugged. _Uh, [[Acknowledge.]] 10-4, big guy?_

The buzz shifted into words, somehow spawning directly into his head. [[...permissions received. Link open User ID SamFlynn:Program ID Rinzler.]]

Sam blinked. _So...we can talk now? You can hear this?_

[[Yes. Target acquired.]]

That refocused Sam's attention immediately. _I'm right behind you_ , he thought, trusting Rinzler would pick up on it. In the distance, he could see their target approaching. It was moving slower than them, probably under orders to stay under the radar until the last minute. The design differences of this Regulator weren't as noticeable as the cycles and jets had been, though there was something. The lines were sharper, maybe. 

[[Approaching firing range.]]

 _Too bad we can't capture it_ , Sam thought, remembering his dad's story about commandeering the Rectifier.

[[Do you have a plan to achieve that end?]]

 _You mean how we could capture it?_ Sam thought. _You heard that?_

[[Yes. Closing on firing range.]]

 _Well_...Sam thought about it a moment, recalling how he'd hooked into Rinzler's programing. _If we can get down to the surface, I think I can bypass the security. Be good to have a ride like that where we're going._

[[Agreed. We'll try your plan.]]

"My what?" Sam asked out loud. “That wasn't a plan! You're supposed to tell me that was a terrible plan!”

[[Derezz your jet over the Regulator while I distract them. Tell me when you've cracked the security and I'll join you. We'll have to move fast after that.]]

 _After what? This is a terrible idea..._ Sam wondered, eyes still wide from the realization that he was going to have to be the responsible one in this brief partnership. At the speed they were approaching the Regulator, he'd be lucky if he didn't splatter. The buzz returned, and then Sam realized he knew how to pilot the light jet with much more finesse than he had thirty seconds ago. Well enough, at least, to slow down and avoid pulverizing himself against the side of the Regulator with this stunt.

 _Was that you?_ Sam thought, blinking.

[[Yes. It appears you've successfully downloaded and unpacked the data. Are you ready?]]

Sam grinned slowly. "Yeah." With the data Rinzler had sent, Sam knew how to override the securities in the jet and assume manual steering. _This is so much better than Kung Fu._ "Let's do this." He shut down the alarms flashing distracting images at the edge of his vision and closed the zoom on the approaching ship with an impatient swipe.

 _All right, Sammy,_ he thought to himself, psyching up. _It's like skydiving or base jumping. You liked that, right?_

_...fuck, yeah._

Sam continued at a slight incline, aiming almost for the edge of the Regulator and kept his speed steady. At the last minute he pulled up and slowed down to almost a hover. He rocked into the safety belt and then derezzed the jet.

The worst of the momentum had bled off so he only skidded ten or fifteen meters over the uneven ground before friction finished the work of stopping for him. When the world stopped spinning and he could focus on things that weren't not dying horribly, he heard the sound of energy bolts firing and realized Rinzler had already engaged the attention of the sentries to buy him a window of opportunity.

 _Time to earn your keep,_ Sam thought, laying his hand down against the side of the Carrier.

[[I don't understand.]]

 _Sorry, that wasn't for you,_ Sam thought. Sharing his thoughts would take some getting used to. For one, he wouldn't be able to think of porn--

_...damn it._

Rinzler didn't send anything in response to Sam's unruly thoughts and Sam took a deep breath and forced himself to relax and remember the weightless feeling of free-fall before he'd pulled his chute.

After a moment, something wide and shallow unfurled in his mind. It didn't attempt to initiate contact with Sam or appear as active as Rinzler had, even while the program had been suffocating under his identity crisis. [[Uh. Status?]]

[[Invalid command prompt. Input command.]]

 _Well, at least I did that right_ , Sam thought. _Now..._ [[Identify.]]

[[Carrier Class Regulator.]]

 _That's original._ [[Access hub.]]

[[Administrative authorization required to execute command. Provide authorizations.]]

 _Wish I had I.V.E.S. here...shit, OK. How about..._ [[$flynn authorization.]]

[[Authorization acknowledged. Greetings, Flynn.]]

[[Access hub,]] Sam tried again.

[[Insufficient authority to override security. Password required.]]

 _Of course. I don't have time for this. Rinzler: are you still picking this up?_ Sam tried to think in Rinzler's direction.

[[Yes.]]

_Do you remember your access codes from these days?_

[[One micro.]]

Sam blinked, pulling his attention away from the carrier's code to glance up in time to watch Rinzler fire on one of the jets pursuing him, cracking it in two. One of the halves slammed into another light jet as it disintegrated, sending it spinning defenselessly. It shortly joined the first as pixelating dust.

Then there was another buzz, like he'd felt when Rinzler had uploaded the information on the light jets directly over their uplink, and Sam realized he had the codes. _Thanks, man,_ he thought, and quickly sent them to the Regulator.

[[Override acknowledged. Input command.]]

Sam quickly shut down all other access to the controls and turned off the Carrier's distance weapons. He jammed the ability to communicate with the programs it had out in the jets and the ranged broadcast and receivers.

 _We're in,_ Sam...thought at Rinzler. _Stop playing with your food and get down here._

[[On my way.]]

Sam watched the tail end of the dogfight, keeping one hand pressed to the Regulator, temporarily stationary at his command. He could feel the programs attempting to figure out why their orders were no longer being followed as flickers of motion he could almost see when he wasn't submerged in the ship's base code.

Through that distraction, Rinzler casually destroyed the remaining Sentry pilots and navigated to Sam. He hovered briefly overhead, bringing displaced air -- or something like it -- in a breeze behind him and then derezzing the jet and tumbling in a graceful arc down to land in a deep crouch beside Sam.

 _That was beautiful_ , Sam thought, and then realized Rinzler probably heard that.

"Thank you," Rinzler said, the rough edge of his voice a pleasant surprise after the link communication.

Sam opened his mouth and had a brief moment of panic before he remembered how to shape words. "No problem...weird. This way."

A short command had the Regulator springing a hatch open above an empty corridor. Rinzler nodded and darted for it. Sam checked the layout one more time before he joined him. "Do you know the way to the command center?"

Rinzler shrugged. "The most straightforward path would be to take the main hall transport," he said. "It's likely we'll encounter some resistance."

Sam thought about the mental map he'd made. "We can bypass the Energy regulation hub if we take hall 3 and go down a level before catching the transport."

Rinzler cocked his head. "That route will take approximately three microcycles longer."

Sam nodded. "I stopped us, so that won't matter for End of Line. We can save more programs this way."

Rinzler frowned briefly before his eyes widened. "You mean those on board."

Sam nodded slowly. "Well...yeah. It's not...you know, it's not their fault Clu repurposed them, and we have the time, right?" he pointed out, frowning faintly. Rinzler stared at him. "What?"

Rinzler hesitated, brow furrowed faintly. One eye seemed darker with the faint tracing of lightscars along the side of his temple. "Nothing. This way."

Sam hadn't made it inside Clu's Rectifier: he didn't know how the Regulator differed. The corridors were varying shades of gray trimmed in black and lined with red circuitry. Rinzler led him down the hall and then to the left, down another hall that sloped noticeably downward.

Sam thought back and realized the only set of stairs he could really remember seeing were those at the digital analog of the arcade. "Not many staircases on the Grid, huh?"

Rinzler turned his head a bit and looked at Sam from the corner of his eyes, then smirked. "Flynn realized the futility shortly after introducing the first programs. The transports don't need maintenance like the elevators of the User world, so they could be added more freely. I believe...that was one of the first epiphanies Flynn had."

"Yeah?" Sam said. "Epiphany about...?" Rinzler held out a hand, stopping Sam, and then nodded at a panel in the wall. Sam quickly pressed it, using the $flynn ID to call the transport.

"The amount of power he had here," Rinzler continued. "The...freedom."

 _Freedom_ , Sam thought incredulously, and then immediately felt bad when Rinzler flinched. "I didn't mean it like that." Rinzler nodded. Sam bit his lip. On the one hand, he'd been angry about his father's disappearance his whole life. On the other hand, it wasn't _the Grid's_ fault. Or Tron's. _Rinzler's_.

"Really," he said fingers flexing with the need to do something and no clue as to what would be allowed or welcomed. "I don't blame you, OK?" _I mean it._

Rinzler's shoulders relaxed, but he still didn't look at Sam. Sam shifted, trying to figure out what he could say -- or think -- that would explain how he felt when he didn't really understand himself.

 _It's not his fault_ , he realized, and Rinzler looked at him, finally. Sam swallowed. "That link could get kind of distracting," he said quietly.

Rinzler cocked his head. "I can disable it." The fringe of his hair was ruffled in an uneven wave from his helmet, brushing his forehead and one eyebrow.

 ** _No_**. Sam was a bit surprised by his own immediate response. "Uh. It's fine. Besides, could be useful, right?"

Rinzler cocked his head curiously, but the transport doors slid open smoothly. They stepped into the transport smoothly and the doors closed behind them. Sam had to override the controls again, but it was quick work. He glanced at Rinzler and started to tell him he'd check on the numbers in the main room again, but Rinzler was looking forward, brow furrowed faintly.

Sam decided not to bother him and just set his hand to the side of the transport.

"No, don't--"

_movement in time not space not walking wind jumping static free-fall up_

A line of fire along his ribs and a sharp ache on his arm reminded him of his body.

"You may be more impulsive than your father," Rinzler muttered. He had an arm around Sam's waist and was gripping Sam's arm with the other: he pivoted, pulling Sam with him easily, leaving him in the middle of the transport car. Sam was dizzy enough to need the support to stand.

Sam took a few shallow breaths and slowly relaxed. "What...was that?"

Rinzler sighed. It was weird and Sam didn’t know why. Rinzler sighing was perfectly normal in the range of weird shit he’d had to deal with in the digital world. _Oh._ Rinzler was a program and neither he nor any other program - including Quorra - had been breathing, to Sam’s knowledge. _Huh._

"You should probably wait until you've got more experience before trying to command a program as vast as this while you're already using it to perform an active function."

"...yeah, definitely," Sam mumbled, then tried to back out of Rinzler's grip. "I...think I'm OK, now."

Rinzler only hesitated for a split second, but it was long enough for Sam to feel his arm tighten around his waist before the program let him go. Sam needed a minute to be sure he had everything back online fully, but then he thought about that and cocked his head. _What was that about?_

If Rinzler heard the thought -- which was almost undeniable -- he had a brilliant poker face. Sam started to ask, but had barely opened his mouth when Rinzler reached up and activated his helm. Sam thought he might have seen a shimmer of red cross over Rinzler's blue eyes briefly, but his helmet rezzed too quickly to be sure.

"Ready?"

Sam's eyes narrowed briefly, but the transport stopped so he put it out of his mind for the moment. "Strategy?"

Rinzler glanced over at him briefly. "Take the left," he said.

"You don't have a disc," Sam pointed out even as he felt the momentum of the lift slow. He wondered if that was also a carry over over from the familiar when Flynn was designing the transport lifts. He couldn't remember if the lift he'd ridden before had done the same.

"I'll be fine," Rinzler murmured, and now his voice was almost the exact same dangerous purr it had been the first time he'd spoken to Sam.

The doors opened just then, disrupting memory as Sam and Rinzler were exposed to a room of paranoid programs who had been cut off from all other areas in the Regulator and forced to watch their scouts be destroyed. They were already tense and uncertain: Sam and Rinzler bursting from the transport lift was probably a blessing, giving them a focus for their fear.

Take the left, Rinzler had said. On the left, two programs were turning, one wearing a visor like Clu's assistant had. Both of them bore the red circuitry of the Repurposed and each had their disc in hand. To Sam's right, Rinzler was already a blur of black as he moved toward the other three programs Sam could see.

Sam couldn't watch him work this time as the program without a visor flung his disc. Sam dodged to the side, pivoting in a crouch to snap his own disc out in a sharp motion. The program wasn't expecting it and lost an arm for it. His face froze in a terrible shocked stare down at the stump before he began disintegrating into pixels. The neat rain of his remains was interrupted by the return of Sam's disc, sending flickering squares around Sam in a macabre splash he couldn't afford to duck from.

"Death to the Users!"

Sam rolled away from his lunge, scrambling to his feet in time to deflect a wild swing with his own disc. The program's chest was exposed and Sam automatically elbowed where the diaphragm would be, realizing mid-jab that the move wouldn't be as effective. Thankfully, it was enough pressure when the program was already off balance to send him stumbling, which gave Sam the chance to spin on his heel and drive his disc deep into the program's side. He jerked back sharply as the program became jagged, flimsy pixels around the wound and watched the light of his unrealized energy shine through him in a burst as his code collapsed.

Rinzler was still fighting, the sound of a disc bouncing off of a wall reminding Sam that it wasn't safe to space out yet, but he looked up to see Rinzler catching a disc with red circuitry on the return, and no other programs left standing in the room.

Pixels lay in scattered heaps and on the floor and Sam remembered the program he'd seen sobbing on the floor at End of Line. _Do they bury the pixels?_

[[We give them to the Sea,]] Rinzler sent. [[Or...we used to.]]

Sam wondered about that, but didn't try to articulate it in case Rinzler felt like he had to answer that, too. Instead, he dipped his head once and then waved at the control panels. "Got another one of those patches on how to handle her?" he asked. "Doesn't look like a one man job."

Rinzler allowed his change of topic, but didn't let on whether he was grateful or not. Sam might have imagined the reluctance he thought he'd sensed. He didn't have time to dwell on it as the link between them hummed with the transfer of data, and Sam suddenly knew how to pilot a Carrier class. " _Sweet_. God, this would've been useful when I was fifteen."

Rinzler cocked his head and Sam laughed. "Back home, when you turn fifteen you can start driving -- operating vehicles, like light jets, but we have to learn manually, no direct uploads or patches like what you've been doing. Alan had a hell of a time teaching me how to keep to the traffic laws. Poor guy."

Rinzler froze. "...Alan?" he asked softly.

Sam blinked. "Yeah...oh." Alan was Tron's programmer. _Rinzler's_. His _creator_. Shit.

Rinzler made a sound, soft and ragged, and Sam remembered the the first time he'd heard it in the Operations Room, when things had finally been quiet enough to distinguish the different sounds to hear the gurgling purr.

Sam shifted, scrambling mentally for something to say. _I'm sorry? No. He's a good man. What does that mean to him? I was such an obnoxious little shit back then. God knows_ **_that's_** _true, but not something that'll make him feel better. He did a hell of a job on you...?_

"Will you be able to man the ship alone?" Rinzler asked, interrupting his mental panic attack and Sam snapped back to the matter at hand.

"I...guess?" He looked over the controls of the ship and realized he had a new instinctive understanding of their use and how to trigger their functions. "I thought we were going to take it back to End of Line."

Rinzler nodded, helmet casting distorted reflections of the gleaming circuitry lighting the room. "We took too long. Even at top speed, we may not make it to the colonies in time to prevent catastrophe. If I take a jet, I may be able to arrive in time to have Arjia evacuated."

Sam looked down at the console and remembered the sensation of falling up, leaving bits of himself behind him in the rush.

"Sam..." Rinzler cocked his head and took a step forward, one of his hands lifting to hover briefly before falling. "We don't have to split up. I can--"

"It's fine," Sam said, pushing the memory away. "I hooked into the Regulator easily enough before, didn't I? It'll be easy." He swallowed his nerves and forced a smile by rote, knowing it wouldn't work on Rinzler like it did on Alan...not with this link up. "You're right, you should get going."

Rinzler hesitated a moment and Sam turned to the closest control panel, biting back his panic.

Rinzler pressed a hand to Sam's back lightly and then, buzzing along the link between them, [[request status $samflynn]].

Sam's shoulders relaxed faintly and he craned his neck back to smile sheepishly at Rinzler while part of him railed at himself for being selfish when they had so much riding on them. "I'm fine. Sorry."

Rinzler's grip tightened faintly before he released Sam and shifted back. The weight of his attention was oddly settling, considering he usually hated people staring at him. It was doubly strange considering he couldn't actually see Rinzler's face.

 _More things to think about later, Sammy_ , he told himself -- and probably Rinzler, but he was getting used to the idea of not having privacy in his head -- and laid a hand on the control panel, he had a moment of uncertainty, unconscious and genuine, but he was able to push through it.

Hooking directly into base code was getting easier. Sam stretched out into the Regulator, fingers of his attention unfurling into the navigation system and weaponry controls. He spared a moment to make sure the programs he'd shut out were still locked away until they could be scrubbed free of the Admin patches overriding their primary functions, then shifted back to the code once more.

Most of the ship's reports were flowing smoothly and, like that, the vast amount of programming that made the ship possible could be lumped together, a rubber-band ball made of loops and loops of code Sam could skim over until he found the one he needed. He plucked it out, stretching the code into something easy to see, to manipulate and shape, and took a minute to examine it.

 _Got it_ , Sam sent to Rinzler when he had a plan he was sure he could manage, focusing on the thought and following it along the strand connecting him to the program.

[[I will meet you at Arjia, then. Do you have the coordinates?]]

Sam checked and found that Arjia was one of several destination points. _Yeah, I'm good. Are any of the rest of these familiar to you?_

[[The last is the Administration Center. The rest are ISO villages and known points of commonality.]]

_Like End of Line?_

[[Yes.]] Rinzler turned around and Sam had a brief moment of double perception as he both watched his retreat to the lift and felt his steps as pressure along the floor through his connection with the Regulator.

He blinked, unable to clear the strangeness and tried to focus on the ship's reports. _Right. Get out there and see what you can do to start the evacuation. They're probably already paranoid, so...be careful, OK?_

Rinzler stepped into the lift and turned, lifting his hand in a solemn wave. [[I will. You too.]]

Sam followed his exit reversing the path they'd taken, activating the lift and opening the maintenance portal on the roof when he was there. The monitoring code had a long range, but Rinzler unleashed the full speed of the light jet and was outside the range within a microcycle.

Sam was alone, half of his mind processing the constant data flow of a Carrier class full of hostile programs trying to escape their temporary prisons in an effort to propagate mass genocide. _Here we go..._

He stretched out his attention along the code for the communications array and quickly internalized the ship's ability to contact fixed points. He pinged End of Line.

[[Well, bless my code. What can I do for you, Administrator?]]

Sam blinked. _This isn't Clu. Is Quorra still there._

The casual...tone, or flavor of the message, faded away. [[The new User. Son of Flynn. My, my. Yes, she's here.]]

 _May I speak to her?_ Sam asked.

There was a pause, and then, almost apologetically, [[I'm afraid I don't have of the authority to shift the pipe contact point, $samflynn. I can pass on a message...?]]

Sam didn't want to use any intermediary, let alone this one, but he bit down on the thought. At least he didn't have to worry about Zuse picking up his thoughts like Rinzler did. _We've taken the Regulator. End of Line is safe, and R...our friend has gone ahead to Arjia City._

[[Ooooh, subterfuge!]] Zuse sent. Sam detected a sense of relief though, in the slower transmission speed. [[One micro, ducky.]]

 _Right_ , Sam sent, rolling his eyes. Apparently, Zuse had always been that way.

[[Quorra sends her love, darling, and says to make your way to Arjia as well. She'll meet you there. I've loaned her a jet.]]

Sam shifted, reluctant to trust him again but not having much choice right now. _OK. Thanks, Zuse. ___

_[[Think nothing of it, my dear. A purge would be bad for business, eh?]]_

Sam confirmed that with a short burst of static and cut off the line. "Bad for **business**?" he muttered. "Christ, Quorra, you need new friends."

The Regulator had been heading toward End of Line at top speed but Sam had halted all movement when he'd landed. Now he updated the priority coordinates as Arjia city and told it to _move._

The Grid passed beneath him -- beneath the ship -- in a slow blur of colors. The Regulator's top speed may have been slower than a jet's, but it was still faster than almost any other vehicle Sam had driven.

The sensors took in all of the environmental data and the weapons array automatically calculated and recalculated optimal targets until Sam had to shut it off due to a headache developing behind and above his eyebrows and an unsettled stomach that threatened to become outright nausea. The sensation of both steering and being the vehicle was engrossing enough – strange and wide, , yet somehow shallow -- that it took the beacon signaling the approach to Arjia before Sam realized how close he'd come to the city.

He slowed the ship's pace and diverted more energy and attention to the sensors, increasing the range to be able to view the approach.

"Motherfucker." He didn’t know what an infected program would look like in the Grid, but he could absolutely recognize the programs besieging the city for Black Guards, held off by two light jets and ground support from the city that seemed to be based on improvised equipment.

Sam immediately redistributed the ship's energy to speed and pushed it to it's top possible rate, covering the rest of the ground as quickly as the Regulator _could._ The ship shook and the code blared warnings about maximum stresses and the integrity to contained data, but Sam shut those off and confirmed his commands.

The air units were too quick to bother with, but there were tanks on the ground alternating bursts of fire at the ISO barricades and the light jets. Sam turned his attention on them in the form of the forward turret.

The first tank shattered under the powerful blasts Sam levied. He didn't have the best handle on all of the guns, but he was even able to manage suppressing fire for a knot of light cycles that were being boxed in. The turret of the second tank revolved in response to his actions and Sam understood the impact of its shots as minor spots of darkness in the overall programming, as strands of redundant code became damaged and surrounding code picked up the slack. He barely paused aiming and then the second tank joined the first. The programs piloting the attacking light jets tried to flee past him, but one of the jets pursued them.

 _Are you OK?_ Sam risked sending to Rinzler.

[[Yes.]]

Sam didn't try to focus anything his way again after that. They each had jobs: Sam had two more tanks to deal with, and terrain that was preventing his shots from doing anything but scattering sparse interface data.

He checked the energy stores for the light cannons and found them barely depleted, then took a breath and aimed as carefully as he could and unloaded their full force on the rocky outcroppings jutting into the Grid from the wastelands of the border.

[[Maintenance bay 3 emergency lock-down overridden.]]

[[Weapons system level 1 authorization invalid. Illegal activity detected. Provide valid authorization.]]

 _What_? Sam had a moment where he was in two places at once. Or three, even: his physical body, breathing and blinking and getting sore from his piss-poor choice of positions, the part of his attention in the weapons' code and the part following the override notification back to the bay where several programs were pouring out of the bay into the hall. The ship's code, if it had been a ball of rubber-bands before, was an apple filled with razorblades now. His brain literally ached trying to address all of the information coming in, demanding acknowledgment and action all at once.

Rinzler's mental intrusion was still somehow louder than the din: [[disconnect hall 3f from the rest of the ship. Seal it off entirely.]]

Sam's aching, scrambling mind latched onto the command immediately and flailed out in a clumsy search for the code to accomplish it. The angry warnings about his override being disabled fell silent and Rinzler sent a buzz of data, stringing together numbers in patterns that didn't mean anything to Sam, but immediately soothed the remaining warnings.

 _God, that was awful,_ Sam thought. _Let's never do that again._

[[You were processing data meant for twenty-seven separate programs,]] Rinzler sent. [[It is little wonder you found it difficult. I'm impressed you managed it as well as you did.]]

Sam carefully checked the monitors and thankfully acknowledged the reports that the ISOs were the only programs on the ground. _Thanks for the help, man. Did you get the ones--_

[[Of course. We're on our way back.]]

Sam smiled, rising closer to the surface of the Regulator's code. _Great. Once we get this taken care of, we need to sit down and figure out what the hell happened._

[[Yes...I've been sorting my memories.]]

Sam wasn't sure how to feel about that. _Uh...glad you're getting your feet under you?_

Rinzler didn't reply for a moment and Sam's stomach fluttered with nerves until, finally, he did. [[Thank you. For your assistance.]]

Sam's shoulders relaxed. _You're welcome. Absolutely. I'd say anytime, but I hope we don't need to do it again, frankly._

[[You might be required to perform a similar duty later, with the conscripts. If you truly intend to restore them back to their original purpose.]]

Sam wanted to agree, but part of him was pretty sure Flynn wouldn't let that happen once he realized what Sam was still trying to process about...whatever he'd done when he'd recompiled Rinzler's code.

[[...no. You're right.]]

Sam blinked. _You heard that?_

[[I received the transmission,]] Rinzler sent. [[Why? We're in range of Arjia.]]

 _Uh..._ Getting used to no privacy wasn't the same as being there. Sam hadn't intentionally broadcast that feeling. He wasn't sure how he felt about this doppledad, let alone how Rinzler must feel about seeing the younger Flynn and his own double. _No reason._

There was nothing they could do about it now, anyway. Sam would ask him about the link later, after they heard back from Flynn and checked in with the ISOs. They could always shut it down when things weren't so hectic (and he wasn't still half certain he'd messed up in there with Rinzler and the program would glitch). After they figured out what was up with the I/O tower, probably. _Shit._

[[...$samflynn?]]

 _Nothing, I just remembered how much we've got to do before we can even think about getting answers,_ Sam sent, and then noticed the jets hovering a bit in front of the Regulator. _Oh, hey, there you are. Tell Quorra I said hi._

There was a pause, and Sam realized what he'd said and almost bashed his head into the navigation panel he was still crouched over.

[[She replied 'hi back.' You're the strangest User I've met, SamFlynn.]]

Rinzler's mental tone seemed almost...almost something. Sam didn't quite have words for the way they were talking, but the message seemed welcoming. _That's saying something, from what I hear of my old man,_ Sam sent, embarrassment fading. _And why are we back to my whole name? Am I in trouble?_

[[Sam,]] Rinzler sent in response, and Sam felt that almost-something brush away the dregs of his self-doubt. [[We've stopped the primary attack here. Activate a landing port. We'll assist you in a full lock-down on the Regulator. ]]

 _You got it_ , Sam replied, and found he was smiling.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Possibly trapped in a Grid that has somehow reset twenty years, Sam Flynn finds himself risking his life beside two people he's known less than a day, one of whom has already tried to kill him. (Sam begins to fully grasp his situation.)

Quorra and Rinzler were frighteningly efficient working together. Sam tracked their progress through the Regulator's external sensors automatically, unable to disengage his attention when so much of this method of integration seemed to be tied in with his desire and intentions. He was able to keep up with the various security protocols running, at least, maintaining the different blast doors until Rinzler approached the next one, ready for the group of antsy programs contained behind it.

While Sam did all of that, he also had to keep track of the cleanup and guard efforts of the ISOs taking charge of the repurposed programs below as well as monitor the long range sensors for any response in case backup had been scheduled for the ground force they'd captured. 

He trusted Quorra, and Rinzler was...something, so he focused more on the external systems and let their actions pass through his mind without action, merely tracking their progress against the time they had. After they'd cleared two long halls, Sam feels something strange: it was a pressure, tugging at a leash he hadn't realized he was holding.

[[Flynn is requesting permission to ping me,]] Rinzler explained. [[As the Creator, he has a direct connection with most programs, much like the one between us currently.]]

 _So why isn't he going through?_ Sam asked, twitching as the buzz began gaining an odd kind of weight.

[[I am uncertain. It must have to do with my updated directives. You must grant him permission.]]

 _Right...uh..._ Sam focused on the force that was still firmly attached to him. [[$flynn acknowledged. Access granted.]]

The pressure immediately zoomed forward, and Sam found himself dragged with it.

[[Whoa, that was not cool. What on earth...]]

Sam recognized the transmission immediately even without a familiar voice to help him. It was like he was catching scraps of data that were too...colorful, too myriad, when compared to Rinzler's. Sam only realized how disparate their thoughts were when presented with both.

Rinzler hummed thoughtfully for a minute, then sent, [[Greetings, Flynn. The Hub has been secured?]]

[[Yeah, we're squared away here. From what I can see, you guys took care of your end well enough.]]

 _Well enough?_ Sam frowned. _We kicked ass._

Agreement buzzed along from Rinzler in a simple acknowledgment even as he continued his exchange with Flynn. [[We are securing the rogue programs for transport.]]

[[Good, good. Check with Radia, make sure their security is solid. You might have to stay--]]

Rinzler stopped, his programming trying to access a function that wasn’t there. Sam had no time to think before his response was forced into the connection to shut that down before he could glitch. _No!_

[[... _Sam?_ ]]

Sam swallowed and took a deep breath, checking the long-range sensors quickly and feeling Quorra's touch on the next door as she and Rinzler continued their search. _Yeah...dad, it's me. Sorry, but I don't want to leave Rinzler here._

[[OK...why not?]]

 _I'm still not entirely sure what I did when I woke him up, or what effect the Sea of Simulation had on his code, and he still has a lot of memories to process. We'll check with the ISOs, but we're_ all _coming back to Tron City. If we need to, we'll bring the ISOs with us. _Sam needed to do some processing himself: that surge of emotion when Flynn had tried to order Rinzler into guard dog duty had been a surprise he hadn't prepared for.__

Rinzler's buzz shifted, quieted, and then Sam felt it break off from the main communication, and somehow knew he'd opened a private line. [[It's fine, Sam. We'll work things out. Quorra says you are good at improvising.]]

Sam's shoulders eased faintly. _Thanks._

Rinzler sent a simple acknowledgment and ended the private line. There was still nothing from Flynn. _Dad?_

[[...yeah, OK. That works. Let me know when you're close. Looks like we have more to catch up on than I thought.]]

 _Sure..._ Sam sent, not even a little hopeful on dodging that conversation. The three-way connection faded then, leaving Sam with the double-impression of Rinzler as a faint presence in his head and the data readings from the Regulator as he and Quorra neutralized Clu's repurposed programs.

Then the Regulator's comm system alerted him to an incoming request, and Sam frowned incredulously. "When did I become Mr. Popular?" He engaged the system directly and found the request was from Arjia. [[Arjia base acknowledged. This is $samflynn.]]

[[Greetings, Son of Flynn. I am Radia. We have secured the forces sent against us.]]

[[Good job. We're almost done here, then we'll lower the loading bay and bring them on board so we can see about reversing Clu's admin patch back at the Hub.]]

[[Thank you.]]

The connection lingered and Sam waited, but though there seemed to be the weight of intent between them, Radia said nothing. [[Was there anything else?]]

[[There is...the black-clad program, designation Rinzler. He seems to be patched at a rate that makes no logical sense against the current Basic progression.]]

[[...OK...]]

[[And the other pilot was especially familiar to us, though with a memory dramatically increased from what we would expect. And you, we were told, were much too small to visit our world.]]

[[...yeah.]]

[[We mention these things because there is a...flux, perhaps, around you. If you could direct some of this, there is. There is a...program called Abraxas. Perhaps you know of him? Or one of your companions?]]

 _The infected program. Virus?_ [[I'll look into it. Lockdown in the mean time. Seriously, take all security measures possible. If you have the ability to leave, do it.]]

Rinzler sent an immediate status request, something like concern flavoring the bond between them. Sam processed it almost automatically as Radia continued.

[[Thank you, Son of Flynn.]]

[[Of course. Could you send a few people to meet us?]] Sam paused as he felt Rinzler sync briefly with one of the clearance panels near the security center and told the door to accept his authority. [[We're kind of on a deadline here. We'll lock all of the repurposed programs down first, we just need a few pilots and maybe some guards, just to be safe.]]

[[Oh? I see, of course. The Portal. I will send a party with the Basics we have collected. We can transport them all at once.]]

Sam's eyes widened. _Oooh, didn't even think about them, genius. Way to go, Sam._ [[Good thinking.]]

[[Thank you,]] she sent, and Sam got the impression of a smile before she disconnected. _Things just don't stop in here, do they?_

[[Sam?]] Rinzler asked, repeating his request with a higher priority that felt like Sam was being gripped firmly by the brain.

Sam sighed, feeling every hour he'd been up in the last 36. _Nothing, man, I'm good. We're good, OK? Sorry to worry you, I was just talking with the colony and the leader, Radia, mentioned something about a rogue program that's been infected._

 _She's sending a group of ISOs with them to meet us. They'll take the Regulator back to the Hub for Flynn._ Sam sighed. _I didn't even think about the programs you guys took out on the ground until she mentioned it._

[[You are not responsible for all things. Do not assume more than your share of the processor. Programs have functions for a reason.]]

 _Right, right...I guess I just feel bad._ He called up Rinzler's location and realized he and Quorra had managed to finish securing the remaining skeleton crew. _Oh, hey. Awesome. Let's meet up at the lift and we can get this show on the road._

Rinzler confirmed and Sam stood up slowly, maintaining the connection to the Regulator. He held still for a moment while his mind quickly sorted out what input was immediate and what was slightly less so, and then he retreated from the command center.

He could feel the suspended programs in the various system processes. None were active when he flipped through their functions, but he could feel their permissions almost like searching fingers when he shifted his attention them to make sure the minimum requirements of each aspect of the Regulator could run without input.

It was like dragging his mind through cobwebs, and he fought his instinctive reaction by retreating back to the surface of the functions, skimming only long enough to ensure all of the programs had been fully suspended and the Regulator wouldn’t crash to the ground in a fiery storm the minute he disengaged.

"Sam?"

Sam finished withdrawing from the Regulator's functions and shuddered at the strange, empty feeling. He smiled a little at Quorra and rubbed the back of his neck to clear up the tingling sensation. Rinzler was a long, dark shadow at her side, and Sam nodded to him before turning to Quorra. "Hey, guys. Nice flying out there."

Quorra grinned, almost bouncing in place as they stepped onto the lift. "Thanks. Nice job, yourself. You catch on pretty fast."

Sam shrugged, glancing toward Rinzler. "I've had a lot of help."

Quorra tilted her head, smile growing faintly. "You ready for this?"

Even disconnected from the Regulator, with the functions set to run automatically, Sam could tell they were nearing their destination. It was like an odd buzz, very faint but growing perceptibly as the distance decreased. "Me? What about you? You gonna be OK, with...you know, ISOs?"

Quorra's eyes slid briefly closed before they opened again, bright and lively with excitement. "Oh, yes."

Sam searched her face for any sign of the grief he'd be feeling, but found only excitement. _I guess she finished her mourning a long time ago_ , Sam thought.

[[That seems likely.]]

It wasn't even a surprise to hear Rinzler's interjection, though Sam was grateful he'd kept it silent out of respect for Quorra. That sparked a concern though, and Sam glanced at Rinzler as they stepped from the lift into the loading bay. _I know I said this bond could come in handy, but did_ you _want to end it? It’s got to be distracting._

Rinzler didn't stiffen visibly, but his head tilted up a fraction and he faced forward as they crossed through the open space in the large bay. When he replied, his message felt somehow more prickly. [[I am capable of maintaining an active connection with twelve programs and still perform my duties with no perceptible decrease in speed or efficiency.]]

Sam frowned. _I didn't mean...I'm sorry. I know you're bad-ass, but I don't know how all of this...works._

Rinzler's shoulders relaxed and he turned to face Sam as they came to the entry. [[Of course. I forget how new this is to you.]]

Sam laughed humorlessly. "I'm just improvising and praying for the best, man."

Rinzler ducked his head in a shallow nod. "You do very well for someone with no training. I will remember."

Quorra glanced between them, brow furrowed. "Sam?"

Sam waved a hand, sighing. "Nothing, Quorra, I just stuck my foot in my mouth...virtually. No big deal."

"...right," she said slowly, head tilting to the side. "I don't understand. Does that mean you do so physically, in the other world? Why would you _want_ \--"

Sam held up a hand, eyes wide. "Whoa, hold up. Figure of speech. It means I said something stupid on accident."

"Ah..." Quorra shifted her look to Rinzler and grinned. "He doesn't mean anything by it. He's still new. Think of it like a beta run."

Rinzler smirked. "I'm curious what the alpha looked like."

Quorra winced and Sam scowled. "Hey, when did this become gang up on Sam day?" Actually, considering the day he'd had... "Never mind. The ISOs are waiting for us outside."

Rinzler's expression settled once more. "Of course."

Sam eyed him for a moment, vaguely suspicious of his quick agreement, and then turned to Quorra, who was smirking faintly. "What?"

She nodded to the door. "Your show, cowboy."

Sam blinked. "Right." He leaned forward and keyed in the codes he'd lifted from the command center to authorize the load bay to open.

"You know, we need to have a talk about what dad taught you..." he muttered as the door started to open. " _Cowboy?_ "

Quorra snorted, bumping shoulders with him on her way out. "Not everything is down to Flynn, Sam."

Sam blinked, looking after her for a moment before gentle pressure urged him forward. He glanced over at Rinzler automatically, and rolled his eyes when he saw the quirk on the program's mouth.

"You think you're funny, huh?" he asked, stumbling forward as Rinzler increased the weight of the hand at Sam's back.

"The answer should be obvious," Rinzler murmured as he easily took his place beside Sam. Sam cocked his head and Rinzler smirked. [[You don't realize how much you broadcast. I recommend not initiating a direct uplink with any other programs until you've got more control over what you send.]]

Sam froze and then found himself tugged forward. Quorra was a few paces in front of them, at the edge of a group of her people, and Sam was briefly distracted by her expression and the way she was almost leaning forward, but apparently trying to stop herself from doing so.

She was in front of a woman in a purple dress, wearing a truly impressive hat. As Quorra stepped forward, lifting her hands toward the woman, she revealed a man with close-cropped dark hair that was wearing what looked like sunglasses, for some reason.

There were three more ISOs behind them, but Sam was distracted as Quorra flung herself at the leader of the party.

Rinzler patted Sam's shoulder. [[She's fine. Just a little overwhelmed.]]

"I bet," Sam whispered. He hesitated, wavering briefly before practicality won the day and he stepped forward, drawing attention from the ISOs. The three ISOs behind the party stepped forward, closing rank.

Rinzler positioned himself at Sam's shoulder once more. "Greetings, Radia. I am Rinzler. This is Sam Flynn."

The lady with the crazy hat who was hugging Quorra smiled at him faintly in response, but her eyes locked onto Sam. "Hello, Rinzler...and the son of Flynn."

Sam sighed. _That's already old._ "Hello, ma'am. I'm sorry to put a rush on the reunion, but we've got to get going if we're going to get everything secured in time." He looked up and behind him, only somewhat reassured by the bright beacon shining in the sky as proof that the portal was still open.

When he turned back, Quorra was rubbing fingers under her eyes, and Sam flinched. "Aw, jeez..." he bit his lip, looking at her a minute and then stiffened his shoulders. "Uh..Quorra, why don't you stay with the ISOs and help them get the prisoners back to the Hub?"

Quorra stepped back from Radia's embrace and turned to face him. "And let you two have all the fun? No way."

Sam frowned and Quorra stepped forward and thumped him solidly on his bicep. "Besides, you're going to need all the help you can get with...well, everything."

The worst part was, that was too true for Sam to even try and pretend otherwise. He was still alive because of her and even though it made him feel like a total bastard, he wouldn't argue it any further. "You're right. I'm sorry." He looked over the ISO party and offered a lopsided smile. "Guess we'll just have to play catch-up later."

The military-like program with the shades nodded once, then waved the others forward. Behind them floated what looked like a long raft, outlined in blue circuitry, with several programs laid out on top. Sam stepped down from the loading ramp and watched them pass before turning to Radia. "Is this the entire party?" _Are they going to be able to handle it?_

Radia nodded slowly, her eyes moving from where her people were now unloading the suspended programs onto the floor of the loading bay over to Sam, lingering briefly on Rinzler, who had followed him off of the ramp and casually shifted half a step between them.

Sam chewed on the inside of his lip, wanting to ask if she was sure but not wanting to insult her either.

[[ISOs are capable of taking on multiple command functions, if properly trained. They are unlikely to have any issues considering how much of the Regulator has been locked down. Think of it like...a shallower version of when you were managing all sub-functions within the Regulator despite their disparate natures.]]

Sam processed that quickly. _God, this would've been so useful when I first got to the Grid,_ he thought, as much at Rinzler as he could while he remembered the frustration and bafflement of his introduction to the Grid. The sirens _alone_...

Rinzler snorted faintly. [[You likely would have found my directives of the time much more...singular. My processing ability was of the highest authority, but my functions were highly restricted.]]

Sam frowned deeply, responding aloud automatically as his mind flinched from the tight feeling that came through with the statement. "Oh. Sounds...uncomfortable."

Quorra looked between them curiously, and Sam forced a smile for her even as Rinzler answered, almost as tonelessly as he'd been in the arena when they'd met. "It wasn't."

Sam swallowed, wishing he could see his expression, and looked away when Rinzler cocked his head.

Radia was watching them but other than intense curiosity, Sam couldn't make out what she was thinking. "Sorry, we were..." he lifted a hand and tapped his temple and shrugged. When Radia inclined her head, he sighed and glanced behind them to the Regulator, where the ISOs were lined up at the base of the ramp. The members he hadn't been able to get a fix on before both had short hair. One was a red-head with short, tight curls, and Sam blinked, somehow surprised. Thinking back, he hadn't seen any others with hair like hers until now. 

_Another question I don't have time to ask,_ Sam thought with a sigh, and then he forced a smile. "Do you need anything else from us?"

"My people are capable," Radia said, glancing toward them and nodding. Sam heard a faint, tinny echo before he saw the ramp retract toward the Regulator and he frowned, shaking his head once.

"Sam?" Quorra asked.

Sam let it go. "I don't know, feedback or something. Don't worry about it. We've got to get going."

Radia stood in front of them, her face alien in the blue-white glow of the Regulator's circuitry. Sam hesitated. "Um. I hope you know...well, most of the programs had nothing to do with this."

Radia inclined her head a fraction. "I am well aware of the identity of our enemies, Son of Flynn."

Sam winced. "Well...I mean, _enemies_. That's a strong term."

"An appropriate one, in this case," Radia said firmly. "We thank you for your intervention: you and your people have helped to prevent a great tragedy this cycle. But I recall you were on a deadline. I won't keep you any longer."

Sam frowned. _Yeah,_ that's _the wrong kind of ambiguous._

"Sam." Rinzler gripped Sam's arm before he could argue the point further. [[We don't have time for this. Not if we're going to get back to the Hub and then to the Portal.]]

Sam frowned. "...right."

There was a moment of silence between them, and then Radia turned to Quorra. "You always have a home here."

Quorra cocked her head, eyes locking with Radia's before she nodded. Radia looked at Sam, eyes sliding over Rinzler like water, and inclined her head and walked back toward the small line of her people who had come out to watch, wary even of the programs that had come to their aid.

"That might be a problem later," Sam breathed, and turned when Rinzler gripped his elbow. "I know, I know. Let's go."

Quorra took a breath and let it out when Sam cocked his head. "I'm fine. We need to go."

Sam frowned. "Quorra--"

Quorra shook her head and took off running toward a low outcropping of rocks that inclined roughly a few meters away, taking the low side and leaping from the top.

Sam watched the light jet rez around her, the rest of his sentence choked off. The back of his neck itched with his frustration and he swiped a hand over it before turning to Rinzler. "Whatever. Let's go."

They repeated Quorra's launch, Sam followed by Rinzler, and Sam immediately angled his jet toward Quorra's.

 _At least she's waiting,_ Sam thought, exhaustion flattening the edges of the cockpit a little. It took him a minute to get to Quorra's rough altitude, and then they were flying in a diagonal formation. When he'd leveled out and approximated her speed -- and Rinzler had done the same, falling back enough to guard their rear -- Sam pinged Quorra and accepted her line of communication.

[[Tron City is this way,]] Quorra sent immediately.

Sam sighed. [[I know. Hey, look, I'm the last person to tell you when to talk about what's bothering you, but I'm here if you want to talk. OK?]]

[[...OK. Thanks, Sam.]]

[[No problem. Anyway, we do need to figure out our game-plan.]]

[[What do you mean?]]

[[Dad's not exactly...well, I just want to be sure we all stay on the level. You know?]]

[[Ah. Yes, Flynn...he's different than I remember.]]

 _I wouldn't know,_ Sam thought, and immediately struck the thought down as unfair. _God, I'm such a dick._ [[Yeah, I guess. So...]]

A low buzz intruded, and Sam realized Rinzler was pinging him rather than using the static connection that still linked them. [[Acknowledged, Rinzler. Why the second line?]]

[[You can create a relay loop that will allow us all to talk. I'm transmitting the knowledge now.]]

Their standing link hummed for a moment, and then Sam had the knowledge he needed to set up a three-way line of communication between them. The knowledge crackled faintly inside his skull for a moment, like leaves under his feet in fall, before it faded to background knowledge just like it had when Rinzler had given him the patch for piloting the Regulator. An ache lingered beneath his eyes and radiated through his left temple for a moment, needle-thin and sharp, before that too faded.

Rinzler's connection buzzed faintly with an automatic status request, immediately followed up with his name. [[Sam? You're going off course. Correct your path.]]

 _I'm...I'm good. That was...intense, Jesus. But it's fading,_ Sent sent, almost cringing before he realized that it was still fading, that using their connection wasn't making it worse. Shoulders easing, he pulled up the status request and replied with his location coordinates, then overrode the invalid input warning to clear the request from where it was hanging in front of him and carefully leveled the nose of his jet. _Let's hold off on any other transfers like that, OK?_

[[Of course. I'm sorry. It seemed the most expedient way.]]

Sam swallowed. _Hey, no, it's cool. I didn't think about it before either. We just probably shouldn't experiment with_ my brain _until we know what it's doing to me._

[[Sam?]] Quorra asked, and Sam remembered what had instigated the flash-headache.

[[One second, Quorra. I'm going to try something,]] Sam sent, and then cobbled the two connections together: it felt oddly like...breaking through drywall between two parallel stretches of hallway near the end of both, creating a meeting point where everything whirled through his mind.

[[How's that?]] he sent, cautiously at Quorra. 

[[How's what?]] Quorra asked.

Rinzler answered while Sam pulled forward, getting back to the spot he'd originally held in formation. [[It seems functional.]]

Quorra's line seemed to stutter, and Sam felt ghostly fingers tugging at the line he'd created before Quorra spoke. [[Wow. I've never seen something like this before.]]

[[It's a method Clu applied in certain process control centers to stay connected after Tesler was defeated.]]

Rinzler’s communication felt sharper, more defined compared to Quorra’s. It reminded Sam of his code, stripped clean of the angry red. Quorra, in comparison, seemed a little...more, more emphatic, like her words took more space in Sam's brain. Rinzler's speech seemed incredibly condensed and focused, and Sam wondered, insight tickling the back of his mind, how much that had to do with accidentally hurting Sam, considering his new directives...

The statement from when he'd been connected to Rinzler's code sprang back to mind: **Primary responsibility SamFlynn.** Sam remembered the sensation of code unfurling in his mind out from some other center, and his own too-fast response, and he sighed. _We still need to talk about that._

Rinzler sent an acknowledgment as well as something that chimed and left Sam with the feeling like he had something he needed to get to...eventually. [[Now?]]

Quorra was less enthused. [[What _was_ that? It felt like...a ghost.]]

 _Not now,_ Sam sent along their private connection before switching to the main line. [[A memory. I'm sorry, I don't have control over my mind as strictly as you guys do.]]

[[Your design is one of power and endurance,]] Rinzler advised. [[Check the number of processes you're juggling right now in addition to those for the light jet.]]

[[Yes, Sam. You're doing really well, all things considered. Flynn meditated for many cycles to learn the focus necessary to manipulate code as complex as the Regulator with the ease you managed it.]]

Sam blinked. [[Really? But when he was fixing your code...]] He let the sentence trail off, uncertain if she would want to talk about it.

For her part, at least, Quorra seemed unperturbed. [[He'd had practice. I wasn't...whole, when I made it to the Outlands. It took a long time, and many cycles spent in meditation and review before Flynn could resolve the errors in my code.]]

[[Ah,]] Sam sent. There was nothing else to say then. The navigational beacon he'd activated automatically was flashing its coordinates steadily as they approached. [[We’re nearly there.]]

[[We still need to talk,]] Quorra sent before Sam could run the end command.

He sent a confirmation and followed Rinzler down into the city.

~

The streets were less familiar on the edges of the city. There was still an obvious core design pulled from Center City, but there was more space available – comparatively – for Tron City. When they breached the walls and Sam had a chance to look around, he realized he wouldn't know how to navigate this city with traffic and people clogging it. His activate navigation continued gently nudging him, drawing his attention toward part of the center left of the city. 

Sam tapped his light-baton against his thigh, taking another look around before calling up his cycle.

The streets continued on past where they would've ended in the material world. They turned or stretched out in ways they couldn't, in Center. The lighting worked to minimize shadows except where intersecting circuits formed nodes and the long dark pools that characterized the alleys deeper in were almost nonexistent.

Sam remembered the almost-mirror of the city outside the double of the arcade and wondered which programs had received the delegation to expand. Quorra touched his elbow and he let it pull his thoughts back to the moment, fist tightening on his baton. “Right.”

Programs watched them warily as their bikes moved through the streets. There was surprisingly little difference in performance between the older and newer bikes, and they moved through the subdued city without issue. 

There were no ISOs to be seen, and Sam took that to mean that Zuse had made good on spreading the word. 

As the streets became a bit more narrow and began more closely matching Center, Rinzler sent him a status request and then followed it up with, [[I will enter first and confirm security.]] 

_Do you really think my dad or...well,_ you, _would have trouble with workers at the Hub?_ Sam sent back, slowing his pace slightly so that they'd have time to talk. Rinzler followed suit and Quorra darted a look at Sam with her head tilted before doing the same. They were crossing what would have been Mullholland Boulevard in the real world. 

[[It's fine, just hammering some things out,]] Sam explained. 

Quorra's expression was hidden by her helmet, of course, but Sam could tell she was probably frowning. [[Like what?]]

Rinzler shifted to their open line. [[There are a large number of variables in play that I was unaware of at this point in the original version. I'm not taking chances with Sam's life. Who here could repair him?]]

Sam sighed. [[We could just call in and get a security status.]]

[[No,]] Quorra sent immediately. [[He's right not to trust it, Sam. Administration programs are capable of overriding status requests.]]

Rinzler's line buzzed with confirmation and Sam decided it wasn't worth the hassle. He could already see the clashes they'd have later when one of them wasn't willing to back down. _Whatever. Fine._

Rinzler immediately took point. They were now in the old town, and every place here matched the inner city around Flynn's Arcade. Sam couldn't fully shake the sense of discomfort. It had been the same when he'd gone looking for Zuse on Quorra's recommendation before. _God, this is weird._

Rinzler tilted his head faintly in response, not looking back but still tuning in to Sam's channel. [[What?]]

 _Oh, sorry,_ Sam sent. _Uh...well, did you know dad brought this design in from the material world? The physical layout matches the city plan from back home pretty close. It's a little weird._

[[Ah. Yes, Flynn imported the design for the first cities from your world.]]

 _Cities? There are more?_ Sam asked as they rounded a corner. 

[[Yes. Tron City was first and has always been the largest. Argon City was created after. Flynn was not invested in its design as closely as he was to Tron City...]] Rinzler paused, slowing down and then stopping entirely. [[Hm.]]

Sam and Quorra followed suit, each leaning out onto a leg beside him and Sam followed his line of sight to a knot of programs, most of them with what looked like military upgrades. The hum was ongoing and held the weight of consideration. _Analytics, maybe?_ Sam wondered even as he gave the programs barring their way his full attention. _Trouble?_

[[No,]] Rinzler replied, sounding almost insulted. 

Sam grinned and was glad the helmet covered it. _Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that they'd give you trouble. Do you think they want to fight?_

[[Let's find out. We're running out of time to get you back to the portal. There's only a quarter cycle left before it closes again, and you'll need a third of that to fly there.]]

Sam swallowed and shoved the fear of being trapped to the side. _Right. Your show, then._

Rinzler inclined his head in acknowledgment before lifting a hand and tapping along the base of his neck. The helmet derezzed, revealing the angular, scarred planes of his face. The disintegrating pixels faded from the far side of his head and angled out in a growing triangle. The faint white light that remained of his damage, dimmer since Sam's efforts but certainly not gone, was startling in the gloom.

He started forward again, slowly now, and the other programs froze, eyes darting down to his chest. Sam and Quorra eased after him, going barely fast enough to balance properly on their cycles. There was a moment where Sam could see them waver, but then one looked past Rinzler to Sam – no, to Quorra. To her arm, where her ISO symbol was visible. She'd lost her sleeve somewhere in the fighting and Sam hadn't realized.

“The attack was caused by her kind!” she snarled, turning to her uncertain companions and lifting her blue disc. “We never had these glitches before they showed up!”

The uncertainty was fading. Sam scanned the street quickly for help, finding the few programs who'd been out had retreated. The three of them and the other group – Sam did a quick head count and came up with 15 programs – were the only ones left. 

Rinzler had obviously reached the same conclusion as Sam had – there was no escaping this battle – and came to a stop, leaning to the left and looking back at them. “The Hub is that building to the left, with the curved roof rising over the other buildings. Your beacons should lead you there.”

Sam's eyebrows arched sharply and he turned to Quorra long enough to get a quick idea of her response there before turning back to Rinzler. “We're not leaving you to fight 15 programs on your own.”

Rinzler's jaw tightened. “Sam–”

Sam kicked off and leaned forward, gunning it. He had just enough time between their position and the line the other programs had drawn to draw his disc. _Not gonna happen._

light cycles made no sound so he couldn't be sure they were behind him, though he'd be willing to bet Rinzler would follow if only to kick his ass later. Something like cobwebs strained through his mind, sticky but too light to do anything, and Sam shook it off as he clashed with the first program, bearing straight down on her and then leaning around her at the last moment, narrowly avoiding the glowing streak of her disc to slam his disc into the program drawing back his arm behind her, scattering him with the sound of falling pixels.

Then it was a brawl like none Sam had ever been in before, and the only reason he didn't accidentally attack Rinzler or Quorra was their proximity alert buzzing faintly between them, checking and rechecking that they were still in com range. 

Then he was dodging a series of coordinated attacks from three of the programs. He realized after a minute that they were herding him further from the group and realized he couldn't make a straight run back that way. 

But they were in the double of a city that had been planned for real world emergencies and Sam gunned it for an alley at an odd angle, aiming for the mouth off center so there would be no clean way to avoid skidding on the turn, or crashing into the far wall.

The programs gave chase and Sam took a deep breath. _Let this work,_ he prayed, taking his hands off of the handle bars, tensing his thighs and rabbit-hopping up. The bike reverted immediately to the light-baton, rolling with a clatter into the alley. He managed to get a solid grip on the fire-escape and curled his legs up before the simulated gravity kicked in and his own velocity nearly wrenched both of his arms out of socket. He almost blacked out from the pain shooting through him, the agony briefly wiping conscious thought away. 

[[SAM!]]

It was instinct and nothing else that kept Sam's grip on the fire escape tight, arms both screaming a protest, but his plan worked. The lead programs chasing him careened out of control and shattered against the brick shell of the other building. The third one managed to change direction enough to only lose her bike, but she went flying, bouncing three times and not moving from where she landed.

Sam dropped immediately, landing almost gracefully but unable to appreciate it as he rotated both shoulders back in their sockets gingerly. The pain eased enough for him to stoop and pick up the baton. 

Half a block away, Quorra was driving a program back with a series of aggressive swipes. Sam was momentarily arrested by her brutal grace and he was startled when she rolled to the side abruptly until a spinning Identity Disc burst through the program's chest, dropping him to the ground in a mound of pixels. 

Three programs remained, though that was perhaps giving them too much credit: they took one look at the devastation that had visited their ranks and broke. Neither Rinzler nor Quorra made a move to pursue.

“We just letting them go?” Sam called as he made his way back at a brisk walk.

Rinzler didn't look away from their retreating backs. 

“Better they spread the word,” Quorra answered. 

Rinzler twisted his light-baton, rezzing his bike beneath him. “We're close. Let's go.”

Sam frowned after him and turned to Quorra. “What's up with him?”

She shrugged. “He was always very closed off. Impossible to predict. I really couldn't say.”

Sam rezzed his own light cycle after a moment, putting the thought to the side. The private link connecting him to Rinzler still buzzed between them. He hesitated briefly and then sent a private status request as he and Quorra caught up.

There was nothing for a long moment, and then location coordinates and a green efficiency status returned. Sam was only mildly relieved as they drew up on Rinzler and let him lead the way. The rest of the drive was free of trouble and the Hub perimeter was open when even Sam could tell that there should be programs posted as they grew closer.

Almost to the Hub, Rinzler pinged Quorra and Sam both on their mutual line. [[Wait for the all clear.]]

_Rinzler –_

Their private link jangled disruptively, and it felt like Sam was being wrapped up in a thick blanket on a hot day. [[I'm capable of performing my function, $samflynn. Wait.]]

Sam found himself unable to do anything else as the program stormed forward, activating his helmet along the way. His last view of Rinzler before he entered the Hub felt almost like seeing him had the first time, when he'd been hopelessly outgunned by the overwhelming, sinister program.

Quorra came up beside him. “Sam?” 

Sam blinked, attention drawn back from the remembered arena to something more recent, when he'd been determined to help and charged ahead, forcing the other two's hands. _SAM!_ Rinzler had practically screamed, his mental projection a frantic stream of warnings at every level all imbued in his name. 

“I...yeah.”

Quorra's eyes flicked between Sam and the door to the Hub. “What just happened? Rinzler was _not_ pleased.”

Sam swallowed. “I messed up.”

She stared at him for a moment and then looked once more toward the door. “Flynn said...parents get angry because they love too strongly to willingly let go. I believe that applies for many other people, too. It will be well.”

“I hope so,” Sam sighed.

The command prompt to enter came not long after that; and a clipped, [[Clear. Enter at your convenience.]] 

Sam winced as he started forward, in step with Quorra. _Hey. I guess you locked this down earlier. I uh. I just wanted to apologize. I didn't mean to make you worry, or whatever. If that's what this is. I just didn't want you going into a fight like that alone._

There was a pause before the weight of the connection eased between them as Rinzler decreased the restrictions. [[Your father and my counterpart are waiting to examine the Laser in the central office. Come.]]

~

Flynn didn't look up from the screen for a moment after they entered. “It's functioning properly.”

“What?” Sam asked, eyes darting to the display. “What's that?”

“The reports for the laser control. It's functional.”

Sam crossed the room and leaned on the console beside his father. “It definitely wasn't, though.”

Flynn leaned back and turned in his chair to look at Sam. “I think I have an idea on what could've caused the issue, but it's not something I've encountered before...”

Sam's brows both arched up at the dramatic pause and he had to fight the urge to shake the man. “Well?”

Flynn gestured toward the panel. “This is a record of the material stored from when the laser activates, digitizing a person. Currently, it looks like it only has the data stored from when I...”

Sam lost track of things for a moment, distracted by the swimming code he couldn't quite unscramble.

“Sam?” 

_Rinzler..._ Sam turned away slowly. The world felt distant and full of cotton for a moment, and tilted oddly. Then Rinzler grabbed his elbow tightly, and the clouds cleared from his mind. “Whoa. What just happened?”

Flynn didn't look up from the screen. “Huh?” 

Rinzler stared at him intently for a long moment. “I believe it is another symptom like the one you experienced earlier. It could also be a response to the foreign code. The laser drivers were not initially designed for this system. Do not attempt to reengage the data directly again until we know more.”

“Symptoms?” Flynn asked, turning in his chair to face them.

Sam blinked. “Right, of course. But I didn't mean to do it this time...”

Rinzler's eyes narrowed. “I will monitor you.”

“What _symptoms?_ ” Flynn asked louder, eyes shifting lingering on the light scaring visibly across Rinzler's face and then back to Sam. “What happened?”

Sam shrugged. “We don't know. I got a bad headache when Rinzler uploaded some information on light jets earlier – ”

“You let him _upload files_?” 

Rinzler didn't flinch visibly but Sam could feel him react to the distrust, and he lowered his head in an acknowledgment that seemed disturbing and familiar. _Where..._

 _Oh._ Clu's throne room, Rinzler standing submissively, arms tucked behind his back and his head down, looking almost small from the slouch of his shoulders. The link between them was twinging, and felt almost...shallower. _What are you doing, shutting down processes? Stop!_

Rinzler raised his head and met Sam's eyes, the line between them silent, but briefly still.

Sam licked his lips. _You might need those. You're monitoring me, remember?_

Rinzler's blank expression softened. [[You're right. I don't know what directive I was processing. Could you re-enable...?]]

“Yeah, of course,” Sam said aloud, stepping closer in a physical echo as he expanded their connect to hook back into his base code. He didn't have to think about it, he just knew what was required. He wondered if that was because of their connection or if it was from the patches Rinzler had uploaded. Maybe he was learning from their interaction, finally adapting to life on the Grid.

A strong hand closed over his shoulder and shook him, breaking his concentration. “What – “

Tron frowned deeply. “ _What are you doing?_ ”

Sam shrugged off his grip. “What do you care?”

Tron stepped closer, expression growing darker. “You're giving him access to _your_ code, _your_ permissions. I don't even know what access you have. If there were any trace of treachery left and he had access to you – “

Sam raised his hands between them, stepping back. “Hey, wait a damn minute. What is this?”

Lips thin in an expression Sam remembered receiving from Alan the day after his first base-jump, Tron looked past Sam to Flynn.

Sam turned in response, mind processing the information at lightning speed and then refusing to accept the unfortunate conclusions it was trying to draw. “ _Dad_?” 

Flynn looked deeply uncomfortable as he stood and reached out to Sam's shoulder. Sam side-stepped him automatically. “Sam...”

Sam was suddenly nauseous. “Are you seriously – “ 

Flynn let out a sigh and combed his hand through his hair. “How can we be sure, Sam? This...this is crazy, and one of us has to leave in – well, really soon. We can't leave a potential threat – ” 

“Oh, my god,” Sam said, staring at the other man, _his father_ , and recognizing nothing. “He's _not a threat_ , he's a hero. I'm not leaving him _half-crippled_ because you can't see that. Jesus, dad, he saved my life. He saved yours!”

Flynn frowned, jaw working as he stared into Sam's face and then finally his shoulders slumped. “I don't want to argue, kiddo. Can we compromise, here?”

Sam licked his lips. “What did you have in mind?”

Flynn looked at Rinzler. “Let Tron take a look at your code and make sure you're clean while I explain what's going on with the laser.” His attention shifted back to Sam. “We'll restore whatever permissions need restoring if Tron clears him. OK?”

Sam sighed. “You realize he's only just shut them down, right? I mean, he's had full access to the system through his security permissions since waking up.”

Flynn froze. “He has.”

Sam's brows arched. “Uh, yeah. Did you think I was going to clean him up and take him fighting an armada with half of his arsenal shut down? _Seriously_? What – ”

Rinzler clasped his elbow gently tugging Sam back from his accidentally aggressive position. “It's fine.”

“ _What?_ ” Sam turned quickly, eyes wide.

Rinzler looked past Sam to Quorra, and his expression was a little sharper but it wasn't blank either. _You trust her,_ Sam realized. _To...back us up?_

Rinzler turned back to Sam and nodded. “I do.”

Sam swallowed, turning to Quorra himself. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten her for a minute. This whole thing had to be insanely awkward for her, if not outright disturbing. Or...

Sam closed his eyes. _What if she –_

Quorra inclined her head, face solemn and almost granite in its uncharacteristic blankness. “I'll go with them.” Her eyes wavered briefly, moving to the side, and then she was looking back at him, her face closer to serene than resigned. [[We'll stick together, Sam. It's what...your father would have wanted.]]

Heat briefly stung Sam's eyes and a terrible combination of shame and gratitude clogged his throat. He wasn't sure if he was ready to completely write Flynn off, but Quorra's comment had crystallized the off-balance feeling Sam had had since they met up with him. His father had been the old man who'd sacrificed himself, deeply flawed as he was, at least with some perspective. This Flynn seemed just as unwilling to consider other ideas and his response to the attempted coup was leaving Sam cold. [[Maybe he'll snap out of this once the shock wears off, but...yeah. Thanks, Quorra.]]

Quorra looked away, eyes closing briefly. [[Of course.]]

The exchange couldn't have taken more than a moment after she'd spoken – seconds, Grid-time. Flynn was still frowning, but he seemed to be sharing his confusion between Sam and Quorra both now.

“You don't have to...”

“It's fine,” Quorra interrupted, and turned to Tron. “Where would you like the scan to occur?”

Tron cocked his head, eyes narrowing briefly before he nodded toward the far wall. “Follow me.”

Walking away, Sam could still tell them apart by their walk, though he couldn't put his finger on what was different. He turned back to Flynn when Tron keyed a door open, putting it to the back of his mind for now. “OK, please explain to me how the laser is working properly but not actually doing what it should do.”

Flynn was quiet for a moment, eyes narrow, but Sam couldn't be bothered to care when he could feel Rinzler's very quiet but constant discomfort through their link. Flynn evidently decided on the higher road and turned back to the screen. “When I'm digitized – or anyone, I guess – the laser keeps records of the genetic material and the code is included in the base code which is written onto your disc. The laser scans your disc when you enter the portal and uses the stored matter to recreate your body. I'm guessing that's our issue.”

“What do you mean – ” Sam started to ask, and then cut himself off. “It uses the material stored...from when we were digitized?”

Flynn nodded once, and raked his hand through his hair. “It's something I knew about, but I never considered the data could be corrupted.”

The floor seemed suddenly unsteady. “You never considered.”

“No, it never occurred to me. Uh...Sam? You OK?”

Sam shook his head and staggered past Flynn toward the closest seat, the floor jarring under his feet as the Grid swam around him. 

“Shit,” Flynn muttered, and firm hands gripped Sam by the shoulders and steadied him down into the chair. 

Sam ignored the hands on him, bracing his elbows on his splayed knees and staring at nothing. “ _We're stuck._ ”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Flynn said, squeezing Sam's shoulder. “Come on, breathe. Calm down and take a breath.”

A wave of anger nearly burst out of Sam and his heart started pounding in response to the flood of adrenalin that accompanied. The sudden rush of blood to his head probably saved him: for a minute, his vision went dark from the head rush and it was disorienting enough to thoroughly distract him from the rage. “OK...OK, I've got it...I'm good.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, yeah.” Sam waved him off and straightened his back, forcing his breathing to slow and deepen a little to help the process. 

“...OK,” Flynn replied, audibly dubious, and stepped back. “What was that?”

Sam carefully set the anger to the side when it wanted to return, taking another couple of slow breaths with his eyes closed before speaking. “You never considered that the only way to get home was in danger from _data corruption_?”

Flynn shrugged. “I guess not. Seems obvious now.”

 _Are you actually insane or are you really this selfish?_ Sam wondered, and swallowed the question immediately. “Now would be a good time to have someone on the outside who could duplicate that stored data for us, wouldn't it?”

Flynn looked away. “Yeah, I guess. But you gotta understand, Sam. I couldn't just trust – ”

“Alan?” Sam interrupted. “My _godfather_? You couldn't trust the man whose care you legally assigned me to if something happened to gram?”

Flynn's jaw worked for a moment before he dropped his eyes, momentarily defeated. “I'm sorry. You're right, I should've told Alan and Lora, at least.”

“Yeah, dad, you should've,” Sam replied, and then closed his mouth and rolled his head back on his neck. “What are we looking at, then? What does this actually _mean_? The portal started to work on me before.”

“Hm...” Kevin looked at the report again on the wire-framework. “I wonder.”

“Here – ” Sam offered, pushing himself up. Flynn's brow furrowed and it was clear from his expression he was about to protest and Sam held up a hand. “Figure out a way to get us out of here before the Portal closes again.”

Flynn sighed. “Anyone ever tell you you're too stubborn?”

Sam snorted, stepping back from the consoles as Flynn reclaimed the main chair. “Alan used to tell me I could never deny my Flynn blood.”

Flynn smirked. “Did he? Well, Alan's a pretty stubborn guy, himself.”

“Don't I know it,” Sam muttered. “I'm going to check on the others, OK?”

Flynn cocked his head. “About the others...”

Sam stilled, shoulders stiffening instinctively before he forced himself to relax. “Yeah?” 

“You seem...close.” 

Sam shrugged. “I already told you Quorra saved my life like seven times.”

“And...Rinzler?” Sam started to frown and Flynn held up his hands. “I'm your father, I'm allowed to ask nosy questions about your friends.”

Sam shifted his weight to his back foot thoughtfully, and then shrugged. “He saved us. We cleaned out his code. I was in his head, he opened up his base code to me. It was...wild. He's...he's all right. Trust me, OK?”

Flynn looked at him for a long moment and then shrugged. “All right. If Tron clears him, I won't bother you about it again. Now, just in case we missed something...tell me again what happened during integration?

Sam figured that was the best he was going to get and resigned himself to telling the story in pieces a few more times. They talked it through from meeting Clu on the pathway to Sam's second almost-successful attempt to leave and then Sam lost track of what he was saying mid-sentence as his feedback from Rinzler became less resonant. It held steady, but there was less depth to it. Loss of permissions? It had to be. But he couldn't tell how far it went without interrupting, and he still had a headache from his most recent mental gymnastics. He forced himself to focus on Flynn. “Look, I was able to get out before. If you can keep a lid on things here long enough for me to get Alan to the arcade...”

“You want to tell Alan?” Flynn asked, brow furrowing faintly before he answered himself. “No, no it makes sense if what you said happened, happened.”

Sam ground his teeth back and then forced the tension from his jaw and wondered if this was how Alan had felt the last time they'd spoken. “Yeah, so I'll get Alan down, we'll see what we can figure out together, and look into backing everything up until we can all get out of here.”

Flynn cocked his head, looking at Sam for a moment before his mouth curled. “You and Quorra, huh?”

Sam blinked. “What? Dad, no! I meant all of us! You, me, Quorra, Rinzler – hell, Tron, if he wants to come!”

Kevin's eyebrows arched sharply. “Tron? _Rinzler_? You want to bring Basics to the real world?”

Sam sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. “Yeah, man. I want to bring them out with us. Clu was going to do it with your disc, I don't see why we can't...once we get this mess with the laser worked out.”

Flynn's jaw worked for a moment and then he leaned back as he thought it over. “All of us, huh? Well. Why not?”

 _Why not,_ Same wondered silently, trying not to let the incredibly casual lack of consideration bother him. Thankfully, the door the programs had disappeared into opened at that moment as a distraction.

He was relieved to see Rinzler step out of the room, helmet down and apparently unconcerned. Quorra was a step behind him and Tron filed out with slightly more distance between him and the preceding programs. 

“Everything OK?” Sam glanced between them and found his hand twitching, and he realized he was caught wanting to reach out to them to check on their status physically. It was surprising enough to distract him from the urge. He didn't...touch many people. There was Alan and Lora when they were around and...nothing. He was friendly with the guys at the impound yard and some of the people involved in Flynn Lives, but after Gram...

Rinzler settled by Sam, too far to feel any heat from him – if he even had body heat to feel – while Quorra leaned against a wall a foot away as casually as she could while obviously maintaining a line of exit. Tension Sam hadn't been aware of eased from his shoulders. _Right. Well, at least I'm in good company now._

Movement from his right called his attention and he curious eyes from beneath a faintly furrowed brow. _Oh...I was just thinking to myself, sorry._

Rinzler's eyes narrowed faintly and then his expression eased and he resettled back to face the greater room. Rinzler's transmission drifted into his mind with even less force than it had contained before. [[The company is all right when it isn't glitching.]]

Sam blinked. “Did you just – ” Rinzler's mouth quirked to one side without looking at Sam, and Sam snorted. “That's funny. You...you've got a sense of humor. A bad one, granted, but you can't be blamed for that. Alan's is pretty awful, too.”

Rinzler's eyes crinkled faintly as he continued monitoring the movement in the room. 

Sam observed him for a minute before glancing from Tron speaking to Flynn near the console back to Rinzler. “You...uh, everything OK in there?”

Rinzler did look at Sam then, the expression on his face foreign in Sam's experience with him. After a moment, he inclined his head. “It's acceptable.”

Tron approached Kevin while Sam spoke with Rinzler. After a moment both sides were quiet and Tron looked at Sam. “The majority of his weapons may remain functional but I restricted system-wide access: he will require both Kevin's permission and my own to initiate any actions that will directly impact the performance of more than five programs.”

Sam hovered between acceptance and frustration. He wasn't sure what he should be feeling, honestly. He could understand where they were coming from, but something seemed wrong with restricting Rinzler's ability to defend himself. They didn't have time to get into that again, though, and then another thought occurred to him. “What about Clu?”

Flynn sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. “As far as Clu goes...I'll be changing the access codes to make sure that any of his people we missed can't get into anything. We're going to need to do a full scan of the place though.”

Sam's eyes widened. A full system scan would take time they didn't have. Sam could feel the sliver of opportunity closing around them and when he looked at Flynn, at least in this, the other man's expression was familiar in its rueful acceptance.

“We obviously have to table that until we get you out to the real world.”

Tron's expression was stony and Sam was caught between the knowledge that they were nearly out of time and understanding that they were putting an entire world beneath them in the order of priority. But he really couldn't see another option. And then there was Clu, hovering in the background like a sore tooth Sam couldn't stop prodding. The program was psychotic, but was it his fault? His dad had said it himself, at the end. 

But Sam couldn't go there right now though, or he'd start questioning free will and fate and his own interactions with Quorra and Rinzler. Valid questions, maybe, but not ones he could afford right now. 

“What's holding us back?” Quorra asked, looking at Sam warmly. “Sam nearly left when the reset occurred. He would have if not for his concern for me.”

“I wasn't just going to leave you without knowing what was going on,” Sam muttered, looking away. He panned for something else to focus on and met Tron's gaze as he swept the room. The program was frowning as he studied Sam without attempting to disguise that he was doing so. Sam coughed and looked away. 

Flynn was looking at the display again, reviewing the reports from the laser interface. “She's right. You're both right.” Sam's brows arched when Flynn looked at him and the man waved his hand over the room and then dragged it through his hair. “You're all...right. Jeez. What we need is someone on the other side. As of right now, you're the only one we know for sure that can get out there. Maybe it has something to do with your disc disappearing. Maybe it merged with mine when everything reset, I don't know.”

Sam frowned. “If it's got to do with your disc, then you should be able to leave, too.” 

Flynn shrugged. “Who knows what the reset did to the portal? It's safer not to experiment until we're sure someone can fix anything we break.” 

Sam couldn't deny that, but it didn't mean he had to like it. 

Quorra smiled. “You'll come back for us.”

Sam swallowed. “What if I can't? What if I can't fix whatever is broken?”

She shook her head. “You've already proven your facility with the base code, Sam.”

“She's right,” Rinzler said, shifting so Sam could see both of them without having to turn his head. “Your ability to manipulate the code here suggests a high probability for success.”

Quorra grinned. “Exactly. Have a little faith in yourself, Sam.”

Sam realized he was actually feeling better about it, and wondered if he'd given himself a digital concussion at some point. This whole thing was so outside of his entire realm of experience: he and Quorra had barely known each other for a day. She had saved his life about six times in that day, granted...maybe that could explain why she was getting to him like this. But Rinzler? Rinzler had been his enemy for about as long as they'd been...friends? Allies? _Huh._

Sam's mind traced along their journey, hauling Rinzler's insensate form all the way back to the city only to find that they'd somehow hiccuped and wound up back on the previous restore point. He'd personally still been ambivalent toward the program from what he could recall, probably leaning toward feeling some pity for Rinzler. So when...?

_[[Program designation Rinzler fights for the Users. Primary responsibility SamFlynn.]]_

_That was it. Maybe there was something to Tron's concern if Sam had been so radically affected just in the short time he'd sifted through Rinzler's code manually. Maybe it was nothing, just the result of having someone trust you that much that they'd essentially bared their soul, but...it was something to think about._

_“Fine,” Sam said, pushing down the thoughts and hoping Rinzler hadn't picked up on them. Maybe his decreased permissions were for the best, at least for now. “But hold off on the scan until we're all on the outside. We don't have time to argue. If I'm leaving, we need to get going now.”_


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting out is easier and harder than Sam expects it to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the eternal delay. I wanted to get this chapter done and revise the earlier two chapters, and then life happened and inspiration shifted away, but I always had this story on my list to get back to. I will definitely be finishing this story. I really appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read and leave kudos or comment. Thank you very much.
> 
> (I revised the earlier chapters as I said. There aren't a whole lot of changes but I did add a few hundred words to chapter 2 ultimately, mostly toward the ending, so you may want to scan that.)

Sam's fingers clenched around the disc, already keying the portal open and he locked eyes with Flynn, then looked over Tron at Quorra to the side and a half step in front of his father, and Rinzler, standing slightly apart from her but within easy arms reach. His stomach clenched with something between fear and guilt, that had the weight of both. “I will come back!”

Then his vision was segmenting as he rematerialized. His fingers were locked around the disc in his hand, and it was down to the last instant whether he'd wrench it out of alignment or not. Then he was back in the material world. The air was faintly moist in the basement, cooler and heavier than it had been anywhere in the system. Sam took a breath automatically and began coughing, throat constricting as minute dust fragments irritated him. He automatically covered his mouth and pushed up from the desk with the other. He was grateful for the instinct as he realized it was keeping more dust from his airways. He backed away, shoulders contracting until the coughs died and he hesitantly dropped his hand. His body felt odd now that he could focus on it: slightly thicker than normal, but also...faster? No, it was like he was moving while he was standing still. He was...hearing the blood in his veins?

 _Weird,_ Sam thought. _Guess that's what comes from not having a body for a few hours. Hope it fades soon._ There were no sounds outside, though that wasn't the best judge of time on this street. He reflexively reached for his phone and realized he was back in his jacket and jeans. “Good to know,” he mumbled, pulling his phone from his right front pocket and checking the time. _4:33 a.m._

“What?” Jesus, he should've asked Flynn more questions. It had been just after three-thirty when Sam had entered the arcade. He'd walked around a bit, found the Tron machine and the secret door...jeez, it felt like forever ago but it had only been...what, ten minutes? That was incredible beyond belief. But if it were the case...

“Shit,” Sam muttered, dragging his hand through his hair and turning to the passage back to the arcade. The massive servers hummed behind him like the theme from Jaws and he felt the passage of time keenly. The streetlight straining into the room through the dirty window-well lit the room briefly before the door shut. Sam pulled his flashlight from his pocket and turned it on, navigating the dark storage room to the stairs and up. He shouldered his way out of the back passage, heaving his weight into the door to push the Tron arcade machine out of the way. He blinked in the bright-seeming light of the arcade and turned the flashlight off as he inched forward.

He blinked as the dark spots retreated from his vision, then turned to pull the game back in front of the passage and jogged back to the entrance. He was about to leave when he realized it might not be the best idea to leave the building with the lights on: even in this neighborhood, someone might notice before he returned. Then he'd have to deal with the cops, and while he was the owner of the building, it would be a hassle and a half proving it and that was even more time spent with his friends in uncertain territory.

He flipped the power back off, and then froze. _What if I – No. It was asleep, not off. They were fighting all that time. There's a separate generator._

It was time to head back to his apartment. He'd put food out for Marv and grab his laptop. He had everything he needed to make a copy of the data to play with, and then... Sam locked the door and pulled the keys from the rusted lock. Leaving the door open like that seemed like the most careless thing he could have done, now. Thank god the area was primarily industrial.

He bent the speed limit, but not enough for the overzealous police force watching for drunks and adrenaline junkies to give chase, chafing at the awkward balance of caution and haste he was juggling. He was starting to feel the long day he'd had, now that he was back in the body that had had it. That whole thought raised questions he didn't have time to ponder on the short ride, and he added them to the growing list.

Marvin barely lifted his head when Sam got in, huffing at him in a dream's imitation of a bark before going back to sleep. Some of the tension in Sam's shoulders eased. He hesitated, hand over his laptop, then detoured to the fridge where he downed a can of Coca-Cola. He belched away the worst of the carbonation as he refilled Marv's food and water and then he packed his laptop and the cables he'd need to connect it to the Solar-4 servers. He checked that he still had the memory card tucked away as well, then pulled out his phone. He considered paging Alan, but that might come across as though Sam was mocking him after their earlier talk: the last thing he wanted was to irritate Alan before asking him to believe what would probably sound like the biggest pile of BS ever, at least long enough to prove it was true. So he just texted him _Meet me at Flynn's_ , and pulled the messenger strap of his bag over his shoulder.

There was no telling when Alan would get his message. He had a hunch the man was still awake after...everything, but a couple of hours had passed since his 2 AM visit. The hours Sam had spent riding around, Alan might have slept through. He locked up and headed out, running through scenarios in his head, going over a mental To Do list.

_Load up the emulator and make a copy of the system on a dedicated drive. No need to risk my laptop if those elements they're worried about are still around. Check on the scan. Figure out what's going on with the laser and fix it._

The first and the last things were the most important, but he'd need Alan's help parsing the laser's code and the historic data. He crouched and rubbed Marv's back before leaving; the dog rolled his lower half up to bare his belly without moving his head or opening his eyes. Sam laughed and obliged him, scratching along his ribs. “See you later, buddy.”

He made sure the pet door on the side of the house was unlatched and then locked up and belted his loaded saddlebags onto his bike and made his way back to the arcade. He was starting to feel the caffeine as he pulled up to Flynn's – and a pressing need to pee, which he hesitated briefly before taking care of in the alley between Flynn's and the old diner that had closed down several years after the arcade. Then he pulled the Ducati inside the building, and since there was no telling when Alan would get there, he left the door unlocked. He didn't flip the power on the ground floor, using the dusty streetlight filtering in through the grimy windows and his phone to light his way to the Tron machine.

The trip through the short hall and down the dark stairwell flipped his stomach. What if something had gone wrong while he was gone?

The system was running when Sam sat down and his shoulders immediately relaxed a fraction. At least nothing had blown up. Considering that there hadn't been any maintenance on any of the equipment in twenty years, it was mind-blowing to think that it was still even running. The fact that mice hadn't gotten to it, or the damp air... There were so many ways things could have gone wrong, averted by chance or luck. It was a crazy thought, and unproductive on top of that.

He assembled his gear, connecting his emulator – an old laptop he'd taken apart and rebuilt for this purpose – to the servers with the cable he'd spliced together himself, then waited impatiently for the system to load. The screentop was still dusty even where he'd cleared a swathe away: 20 years of stagnation allowed dust to really settle, after all. He made a note to bring cleaning supplies next time.

Then he was in, and the first thing he did was run an advanced system and process monitor...and there they were. Well, he was fairly certain it was them. Though he didn't see anything resembling Clu's process anywhere and figured the program had been very well quarantined while they'd been saving the ISOs. He wanted to let them know he was OK and they weren't alone, but...how? Quorra knew Jules Verne. Sam reached mentally for a quote from Verne, but he couldn't think of anything.

“Oh, hell...” Fingers moving over the keys, Sam typed his command to change the graphics shell and executed it. Then he copied everything onto his flashcard and almost flinched at the speed of the transfer. It had to have taken longer than most eighties computers, but the idea that he could move all of that data – people – so quickly...it was a sliver of space on the drive. It almost looked empty.

Sam took a breath and then began going through the structure. He wanted the record of the last save point – though he was dying to take a look at the corrupted data that presumably had contained all of the time his dad had been trapped in the system. The short glance he allowed himself said it was garbage, but if there was a chance his father – the old man – had made it out – no, that was impossible.

But he might still be saved.

That was a long shot, even Sam could admit that in the privacy of his own mind. He found the repository associated to the laser protocols in the restore point and focused on saving the people who were potentially in danger, rather than already (hopefully not all the way) beyond saving.

Twenty-five minutes later, Sam was beginning to worry. He could make relative sense of the activation and sleep triggers, but there were reams of code attached, commands directing the digitization process that Sam couldn't make out properly. The laser probably took up a full 40% of the space on his disc by itself, and it was mostly commands and triggers and responses.

He was distracted when his phone buzzed twice; he jerked, eyes wild as he was pulled from his focus abruptly before he realized he was getting a call. He fumbled the plastic and nearly dropped it before he accepted the call – **Alan Bradley** as if he'd doubted it could be anyone else at this hour – and spoke. “Alan. You got my message.”

“You knew I would. Where are you?”

“Inside, the door's open. I'll meet you upstairs.”

“Uh...huh. You realize there needs to be a downstairs for there to be an upstairs, right?” Alan asked, uncertain but apparently willing to humor him for the moment.

Sam felt a little bad at that: he'd set the bar pretty low in general for Alan to indulge this as a positive sign, but he made sure everything was plugged in and stood up. “I'll explain in a minute. Just come on, OK?”

Alan was quiet for a moment, then laughed softly. “Your dad used to get cryptic like that sometimes. He never really managed an explanation, though.”

Sam sighed, pushing the door to the outer room open and starting for the stairs. “That's part of what I want to explain.”

“I'm already in, Sam, you don't have to convince me.”

Sam snorted. “Wait 'til you hear me out first,” he muttered, then added, “Could you lock up behind you?” He climbed the narrow stairs by feel, only kicking uneven cement on accident a couple of times. For a moment, he found himself longing for the weightless feeling on the Grid. Even the pain there hadn't been like this – heavy? Immediate? Something. He wondered if his dad had felt the same thing after his mom died; if maybe the Grid had muffled the grief. It might explain some things.

Alan was waiting when Sam pushed the hidden door open. He was still in his suit and Sam experienced a moment where his guilt for calling Alan out was counterweighted by the feeling that at least he’d been awake still anyway… He watched Sam appear in the door hidden behind the Tron game with a faintly furrowed brow, head tilting curiously. Sam didn't step out of the doorway, leaning his body weight into it to counter the automatic swing. 

Alan's chin lowered as he studied Sam, the door, and looked behind him into the dim space behind him. “Huh.”

Sam couldn't help but smile. Alan's expression was incredibly...Alan. Weighing, sorting the new data and slotting it into place. “So I have a huge favor to ask. You need some background though, so...?”

“Down the rabbit hole?” Alan asked, looking around the arcade floor once before starting toward Sam, mouth curling faintly.

Sam laughed. “You have no idea.”

“I get the feeling I'm going to have a pretty good one very soon.”

Sam laughed. “Yeah, that's a safe bet.” He let the game swing the door shut behind them and used his phone to light the short hallway and stairs for Alan. “So obviously I ended up here after we...talked.”

“Hm. Thought you weren't interested...” Alan glanced back, the faintly blue-tinged light momentarily setting his silver hair aglow and throwing intense shadows under his cheekbones. Then the faint light from the street filtering through the small grimy windows was enough at the bottom of the stairs for Sam to tuck away his phone.

Alan stepped to the side of the room, letting Sam pass as his eyes swept over it – it looked like a basic storage room, Sam knew. He cleared his throat, pausing next to him as he remembered their almost-confrontation at his place. His own professed apathy and Alan's eternal patience for Flynn bullshit. “Yeah, well. I rode around for a while, but I guess...I couldn't get what you said out of my head. I'm...”

Alan gripped his shoulder, eyes dark in the low light. “It's fine, Sam. All things considered, I think you've held up pretty well under extraordinary circumstances.”

Sam shrugged. “I'm pretty sure that was all you, Lora, and gram.”

Alan snorted and then considered Sam for a moment. “Well, maybe. I think you were a pretty good kid to start with. Clean base code. We just helped...build it up.”

Sam laughed, the irony of that analogy hitting home. “Agree to disagree: I know you thought I was a stubborn ass a bunch of times.”

Alan shrugged, eyes drifting from Sam back over the room. “Well, you're half Flynn: there's only so much Jordan could do.”

Sam huffed at the familiar statement. It was something he'd heard from Alan and his grandparents since he was twelve or thirteen, when his temper and stubbornness really started kicking in. He let the well-tread conversation go though, in favor of opening the door into the other room. “This way.”

Alan was quiet for a long moment, eyes shifting between the laser setup and the desk fashioned from servers. Sam hesitated for a minute before he couldn't help himself and moved to his emulator, checking the system status.

“Wow. This takes me back...”

Sam stared at the positive response for a minute before tearing his attention away and back to Alan. “What's that?”

Alan swept the room again, waving a hand to encompass everything. “This. The laser, the desk...didn't realize he'd built his own...you there. Sometimes you really look like your dad.”

Sam swallowed, wondering for the first time if bringing Alan in was a bad idea. He probably would've been floored by the old man Sam had met. How would he react when Sam pulled reappeared with a Kevin Flynn that had disappeared twenty years ago? “Alan.”

His tone drew Alan's eyes from the washed-out drawings on the cork board he'd drifted toward. “Sam?”

“You know how dad used to talk about the Grid?” Alan nodded slowly, brows arching faintly. Sam took a breath in deeply and let it out. He thought back to that first moment after he'd burst onto the street and realized he was somewhere else. The euphoria, the curiosity, the excitement before the fear. “It was true.”

Alan didn't twitch, didn't even blink. “OK?”

Sam nodded at the designs on the wall Alan had been staring at earlier, then the laser pointed at the desk, and tapped the edge of the desk itself, waking it up and logging in. “See for yourself.”

Alan met his eyes for a moment and then nodded, eyes moving to the now lit desktop as he moved beside Sam. The command history reflected backwards and distorted in the reflections of his glasses and Sam was torn between anxiously watching him and going back to the laser's repository. Alan's eyes narrowed as his head tilted to read the full screen and Sam figured he'd landed on the last_will_and_testament text file.

Finally Alan took off his glasses and began rubbing the grooves the pads had pressed into the bridge of his nose. “That stubborn idiot,” he muttered tightly. “I knew it!”

Sam gaped. “You knew...?”

Alan's shoulders lifted a little and he resettled his glasses. “I knew something like this was possible. It was one of ENCOM's projects for our biggest defense contract before we switched gears to software and funding dried up. When your father started talking about the Grid, well...it took a while, but eventually I had to wonder if he'd actually managed it.”

Sam processed that and then let out a long sigh, realizing he didn't have to worry about Alan as much as he had been. “Well, he did.”

“Apparently.” Alan glanced at him, mouth quirking. “That Flynn luck...”

Sam considered the last several (subjective) hours, large parts of which he'd spent running for his life, and had to agree. He must have made a face because Alan's eyes narrowed once more.

“What is it?”

Sam smiled faintly. “Well...he's not the only one to make it in.”

“He's not... _Sam._ ” For the first time that night in Sam's presence, Alan's expression morphed into one of deep concern. “Are you OK?”

Sam laughed, faint tension draining from his shoulders. “Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Good. Better than fine. I found him, Alan.”

Alan froze. “He's still alive?”

Sam nodded. “It's a really long story, I swear I'll tell you, but I don't have time right now. We need to get him and three other people out as soon as possible. It's important.”

“People? Did he bring – no, that can wait. I assume you've established a line of communication with them. What's the problem?”

Sam explained the issues he and Quorra had had with the portal, which forced him to backtrack and explain how his dad had set up the portal in the first place, and somehow led to another explanation on the subjective nature of time in the system, and finally said, as briefly as possible, that there were some radical elements in the system now and he would rather isolate the virus from outside without worrying about Flynn and his friends getting attacked. The conversation took twenty minutes altogether, with Sam answering questions as concisely as he could. Alan was really interested in his description of Tron and Riznler both - of course he was - and how much they looked like him, but he obviously tabled those questions in favor of more practical issues. 

“Right. Well, I can see your concern if they've been in an unstable environment for that long. I'm not Lora, but I might remember something that can help. Her work always fascinated me...”

Sam shifted to the side and let Alan settle in front of the emulator. “Where is she right now? We could call her.”

Alan began reviewing the historical data from Sam's entry to the Grid – or rather, Kevin Flynn's in 1989 because Sam's had been corrupted. “San Diego. She's attending a conference in the Bay area, actually. We lucked out. Unfortuantly, if we call her this early, we'd probably want to dive in after your father, virus or no, and hope she can't find us.”

Sam laughed. “Right, right. OK, so...”

Alan looked at him. “It's going to take me a minute to get my head around this stuff. I need a little time.”

“Time, right,” Sam sighed. “I'll stop distracting you.”

He moved back to the desk and tapped out a quick message to the others, writing it across the sky for two minutes in glowing white: _WORKING ON IT. BE CAREFUL._

He checked the system status again and then began reviewing the code. He was torn between wanting to sit on his hands in case he broke something and wanting to get into everything. Despite the small amount of space it took up on his drive, there was still so much involved in the system. He needed to know more about it.

(Maybe he could figure out how to repair the corrupted data.)

Sam called up the base code and began reading, fingers carefully away from the command prompt unless he was calling up a different section as he tried to understand the logic his father had used twenty years ago. It was fascinating, piecing together what he knew of his father's work at the time of his disappearance and technology innovations in the late eighties and through the nineties.

“...corrupted?”

Sam blinked, pulled out of his heads down analysis halfway at the end of a sentence he had no context for. “Sorry?”

Alan quirked a brow at him before rolling his shoulders and taking his glasses off. “How did this data become corrupted? I've got what looks like data from when your dad disappeared in '89 that wasn't closed until tonight and a file that could have similar data, but...”

Sam ducked his head.

“Oh, boy,” Alan sighed, pushing back from Sam's laptop. His chair creaked as he leaned back, plastic and metal shakily holding together just barely. “It's one of those, is it?”

Sam pursed his lips. “Uh...”

“Great.” Alan muttered, sliding his glasses back on. Dust motes floated in the air, visible in the weak light filling the room.

Sam laughed weakly and gave him an abbreviated description of his night.

Alan stared at him for a long minute before an incredulous laugh wrenched from his throat. “Well. You are your father's son.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it...but do you think...?”

Alan looked at him for another long uncomfortable moment before he tipped his head in a silent nod and allowed his attention to be diverted back to the immediate problem. Sam didn't doubt that later, probably while he was distracted, Alan would start asking all of the questions he'd just tucked away.

Well, that was a worry for the future. “Do you think we could map the data stored during the dematerialization process to the record of my code and...duplicate it for the others?”

Alan's fingers drummed thoughtfully over his thigh. “Maybe. From what you're telling me, you...materialized using you father's stored data, so it's probable we can get Kevin out, if nothing else.”

Sam nodded. “Right. And the others?”

Alan shrugged. “Maybe. From what I can see, Quorra's code is incredibly complex. She may be able to make use of the process as easily as you did. As for the others...”

Sam grabbed the edge of the chair to keep from going for Alan. “Come on, there's got to be some way to get the others out.”

“Maybe, Sam. I want to talk to Lora before I make any promises.”

Sam checked his watch and sat back abruptly in his chair. “Great.” It was still too early to call Lora, and he couldn't shake the feeling that every minute they spent with the others on the other side of the monitor was a chance for everything to come crashing down.

His dad's _face_ , euphoric, sad, and accepting as he'd called Clu to him – _no._

After a minute, Alan sighed and pulled out his Blackberry. Confusion jolted Sam right out of the panic attack he'd been about to nose-dive into as Alan laboriously tapped out something on his phone. Alan hated being tied to a work phone and despised the Blackberry he'd been assigned by ENCOM. He'd made it easier on himself with custom apps but his biggest complaint had always been the small keyboards. He'd told Sam on more than one occasion that he preferred the pager, or even the cycling text on the old flip phones, to having to zero in on keys like a precision airstrike lest he accidentally key a word the predictive text translate into something obscene, or ridiculous. On the rare occasion that he and Sam had been out together and he'd gotten an email he had to reply to, his expression had always sent Sam into fits of hysteria.

“I'll tell Lora...to call as soon as she...gets up,” Alan muttered, mouth thinning in frustration as he had to delete a word and retype whatever it should have been. “Will that make you feel better?”

Fondness overwhelmed Sam, followed shortly by shame. He'd been so determined to stand on his own feet and show the world that he didn't need his father's name or company that he'd deliberately pushed Alan and Lora away. And here they guy was, at an ungodly time of night in a not-so-good part of town, text-messaging his wife for her expertise on a project she'd worked on twenty years ago. And Lora would definitely help. Sam took a breath and let it out slowly, pulling himself back together. Seeing his dad again had made him maudlin. “Thanks, man.”

Alan looked up, brow furrowing faintly. “Yeah. Anytime. Well...”

Sam laughed. “I really hope this is a one-off, myself. Better than having to post bail though, right?”

Alan's growing expression of concern immediately collapsed under incredulously arched eyebrows.

Sam grinned. “You know I hate repeating myself, anyway.”

“I am going to have so much explaining to do later,” Alan sighed.

“Hey, it's not like dad can complain. Wasn't your first meeting breaking into ENCOM together?”

“Well, not our _first_ meeting,” Alan allowed, but his mouth quirked. “You do come by it honestly, I suppose.”

Sam nodded and forced a casual tone. “There you go! Not to mention, you can bring up the part where he got his dumb ass stuck in a computer for twenty years because he forgot to plan ahead. I don't think anything I've done can top that.”

Alan snorted but was distracted from a response when his phone began to ring. He frowned faintly as he picked it up and checked the display before his expression morphed from vague disapproval to surprise. He accepted the call and brought the phone to his ear. “Good morning? You're up...very late or very early.”

Lora’s voice was audible in the space between them, but Sam couldn’t quite make out the words of her reply. She didn’t sound upset at the late night call, though. he tightened his hands over the chair, controlling the urge to start shouting questions at her. 

Alan caught sight of the movement and nodded to Sam, his mouth quirked up. “I'm sorry you're having trouble sleeping, but I guess I can't complain, considering we could really use your help.” He was quiet for a beat, then added. “Sam and I.”Another pause. “Ha, ha. Yes, that Sam.”

Sam winced. Alan shrugged and covered the lower half of the phone. “She's joking.” He removed his hand. “It's about one of your old projects, actually. The laser...yes, the one from the DoD contract... No, Lora. Sam didn't pull it out of the vault...Kevin never put it away.”

Lora’s tinny voice got louder and sharper, though most of the words still jumbled together too badly for Sam to make out. Alan didn’t seem surprised. “Well, I'll be sure to tell him that from both of us when I see him...apparently. Yes, that's what I said.”

Sam almost felt sorry for his dad at this rate, whatever version of him they were able to get out of the Grid. The only thing going for him right now was that they would hopefully get this worked out tonight, before Lora had time to get back. Sam wasn't sure Flynn would survive a reunion with both Alan and Lora at the same time, judging from the general tone he could make out from where he was sitting.

Alan stood and waved Sam down. “Hold on, Sam, I need to…”

“Yeah! Yes, of course,” Sam said, grip tight on the chair. _Keep it together, man,_ he told himself and spun back to his gear. He checked the process monitor again, reassuring himself, then pulled up his copy of the corrupted data alongside the data from the ‘89 save file. 

He reviewed the files for similarities, trying to figure out where his father’s disc had fit into the picture and why Quorra had nearly been able to leave before the save file had been corrupted, but hadn’t afterward. 

The more he looked, eyes moving from one file to the other, the more certain he was that the answer was staring him in the face. It was there, he could feel it. He could almost grasp the edges, but when he tried to pull at any one piece, it escaped him. 

Frustration mounting and Alan’s voice a distant rise-and-fall in the other room, not distinct enough to make out any specifics, Sam accessed the control files and began poking around. What was there? He started with the description of the data mediation process that resulted in the dematerialization/rematerialization...and then carefully closed the file and spent roughly two minutes trying not to hyperventilate. 

Working his dry mouth until he had enough saliva to swallow, Sam decided to leave that bit to Lora. He knew that was working, anyway, since all of his bits were present and accounted for. What else...Sam examined the information available to him and then his eyes narrowed as he realized one of the earliest files identified was the priority list. He immediately accessed it and after looking over the tables, he had at least one of his answers...probably.

The more complex the base code was, the higher priority it had, with the exception of the master key (which appeared to be his father’s addition to Lora’s code). Quorra hadn’t been able to use the stored material data because despite her incredible code, Sam had held the disc. Sam wondered what would have happened if they’d tried to leave without it, and checked the rules for rematerialization. 

It looked like his dad’s disc only had to be present to unlock the portal, but it didn’t have to go through it. 

_There’s a thought,_ Sam realized, and pulled up his copy of Quorra’s code and compared it to his father’s. It took him a while to figure out what he was looking at, but once he did, he began picking out the differences. Quorra’s code was actually...really similar to Kevin’s. In fact, looking at them, it seemed that the physical history was all that truly separated them. There were additional bits of code that Sam carefully isolated and began matching to a their root to figure out what cosmetic bit connected to the physical. The first bit he found only in his father’s code seemed to define the rate at which his hair grew. He followed that thought to the linked code and was able to isolate the triggers defining the current length, texture, and color. It was an astonishingly complex bit of code.

Sam hesitated, then brought up Tron’s code. It was much easier to decipher than Quorra’s or his father’s. He remembered the feeling of Rinzler’s base code, neatly structured and flexibly defined: he went over the precursor to that code, or the mirror? He wasn’t sure how to describe the differences, but he could tell they existed. Rinzler’s code was spotty where Tron’s wasn’t, but he had a lot more in the way of memories (of course) and offensive capabilities (made sense), but Sam wasn’t sure if he’d accidentally quarantined any bits of code that should be there by rights. 

The memory itself was odd, and Sam wondered how it would look written out as code on the screen. Would it be easier to understand? Because it was giving Sam a headache as he reached for it, eyes focused on the space between letters on the screen as his brain (the physical organ that processed sensation, through which his physical senses filtered for interpretation) tried to interpret an experience his body hadn’t been present for. His mind told him what he’d done, but his brain was trying to define it in terms of what Sam had _seen_ , how the code had _felt_.

Not only was the entire thing bafflingly difficult to quantify, he couldn’t remember enough specifics about Rinzler’s code to be useful. He tried, but what he could remember, he remembered as...well, as skin. His brain was telling him that the code he’d encountered had been skin, muscle and tissue, muffled and restricted by rough cloth that had fallen away under his fingers. 

Sam backed off that thought as too invasive, knowing the whole thing was ridiculous: he’d had his hands in the man’s code: there was no real world equivalent for that kind of intimacy and if he kept thinking about it, his brain would probably leak out of his ears. 

_Focus on the code, dumbass,_ he chided. _It’s not like you have people waiting on you, possibly being stalked by renegade programs and viruses, right? Shit…_

Sam read through the program’s code slowly, scanning each line carefully and slotting it into place in his mental picture of Tron. The code was beautiful on its own merit, simple and flexible enough to learn and redefine its own parameters to follow its defined purpose. Alan could’ve made Tron into any kind of program, and honestly, Tron could be easily repurposed into any kind of program without issue (though the idea of repurposing programs was repulsive now that he’d met them), but for all that Sam wanted to be admiring this code, he couldn’t get past the fact that there were no physical components to his data. Just...nothing. 

Tron (and Rinzler) had looked like Alan twenty years ago, but the code itself didn’t say that. “Shit.”

Sam sat staring in silence until Alan came back, flipping from Quorra’s code to Tron’s code, eyes scanning over each again, hoping he’d missed something.

“Lora will be back as soon as she’s able to. She’ll tell anyone who asks it’s a family emergency, which I suppose...what’s wrong?” Alan’s voice started loose, the edge of exhaustion softening his consonants and stretching his vowels. The tired tone sharpened toward the end of his words.

Sam licked his lips. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, I’m just...not used to this code. Gotta get accustomed to it before I can start playing around with lives, right?”

Alan’s hand settled over his wrist and he jerked under the touch, startled. Alan pressed down gently but with enough pressure that Sam’s fingers flattened, half curled, and he realized he’d been tap-scratching at the table. 

Alan was definitely alert now. “Sam.”

Sam’s fingers curled into fists so tight the short clipped nails cut half-moons into his palms. “Even if we figure out how to get the material data copied without somehow...overwriting dad and Quorra, Tron doesn’t even _have_ a visual shell coded. Rinzler can’t...it _doesn’t make any sense._ ” 

Sam pushed himself back in the chair, angling away from Alan without thinking, and dug his elbows into his knees while he buried his hands in his hair. Tension was digging fingers into his neck and shoulders, and solid fists had curled behind his temples. He was missing something, he had to be, but he wasn’t _smart enough._ “What does that even _mean_ , Alan? Clu wanted to launch an _invasion_. He had an army! And Basic programs don’t even have a shell for material to fill?”

 _What would’ve happened - no._ He tried to shut down his mind, but he’d always been too clever for his own good. Too clever, but not smart enough to do anything with it. All it had gotten him were fights with bullies in school defending his dad, screaming matches attacking him at home that faded to a jagged quiet, and hours lost researching all of the places his dad could’ve run off to. Now it kicked in again, providing graphic images of popping lightbulbs and a power surge as thousands of programs - maybe hundreds of thousands - used the Portal and killed themselves, thinking they’d won. And worse, because what if Clu had figured out how to access and replicate the material data the laser had stored? How could he know how to define it? Rinzler certainly hadn’t had anything like Quorra’s code in him, and if he was any example…

_Messy, ill-formed piles lumps of flesh that couldn’t be called bodies melting out of meat walls -_

**”SAM!”** Sharp pain and a loud clap jerked his attention from the horrifying train his mind had jumped on and he found himself taking in great gulps of air as though he hadn’t breathed at all for a time. Strong hands pulled him up from the chair and away from most of the equipment in the room. “Shit, Lora never mentioned side effects like this…”

“Fine, I”m fine,” Sam gasped out, grabbing Alan’s arms firmly. “Just...too many horror movies I think. I don’t know. We don’t have time for this, Alan. We’ve got another problem.”

Alan stared at him for a long minute, face cleared of all open sentiment or concern except for the narrowed eyes and furrowed brow. “What?”

“Tron doesn’t have _any_ physical genetic definitions. There’s nothing in his code.”

Alan frowned. “What about the other one you mentioned, Rinzler?”

Sam shook his head. “I was elbow deep in his code at one point, Alan. He didn’t have anything like what Quorra’s code looks like. I may not remember the whole thing enough to recreate whatever patches or overwrites Clu slapped on him, but I _definitely_ would have remembered that.”

Alan looked Sam over, eyes intense as they checked him for any sign of whatever fit he’d walked in on while Sam was being traumatized by his own mind. When he found no signs that a return was imminent - or whatever he was looking for - he released Sam’s shoulders and shrugged off his hands to remove his glasses and rub the bridge of his nose. “That...doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know,” Sam muttered. “What would’ve happened?” 

Alan sighed and resettled his glasses. “Well, I’ll be sure to ask Lora when she calls back.”

“Calls back?” Sam blinked. “Oh, right. What’s the plan now?”

Alan’s eyes had strayed to the map of the Grid pinned to the corkboard on the wall. “Well, Lora is packing and checking out now. She should be here in...six or seven hours: I expect to hear from her bluetooth whenever she gets to the car. For now...let me see Quorra’s code. It’s that different?”

Sam shifted, dragging a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to describe it. Tron’s code isn’t far behind as a matter of what he can do in the system, and Rinzler’s is actually a bit ahead of his in some ways,almost on par with what Quorra can do right now, especially when they don’t allow themselves to be restricted but the...hm. Maybe it’s Quorra’s capacity for learning is just way more flexible. Outside of that, like I said, she’s got a whole lot more to her. It’s like...the system reacted to dad’s presence and tried to reproduce it, or...I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at her code in there, and out here, it’s a bit overwhelming. And of course, we may be operating on a timetable with that virus.”

Alan clapped his shoulder. “It’s OK, Sam. We’ll work this out one problem at a time.” He looked over Sam’s shoulder at the desk still humming gently behind them for a long moment. His profile was inscrutable and outlined in the odd blend of yellow and blue that was almost green. “First, we should see if we even need to create a method to replicate and match up the physical data to the programs.”

Sam thought about that for a moment. “I guess we could take a look at Clu’s audit logs and see what interactions he’s had with the Laser, but it might be faster to ask dad what he found out first.”

Alan nodded. “What are we waiting for?” 

Sam shrugged. “Is a direct line really secure?”

Alan tapped the table thoughtfully, then refocused on Sam. “Between the two of us? It better be.”

After sending the request, it took Kevin less than a minute to respond. Sam wondered if he’d traveled to an I/O tower or built some kind of relay. 

Alan settled in front of the behemoth laid out in front of them, fingers moving rapidly over the touch interface, sending out a rapid fire series of questions with almost no pause between receiving one answer and asking the next question. 

] _Kevin, this is Alan Bradley. Please respond._  
]  
]...hey, Alan.  
]  
] _Is your group secure?_  
]  
]Yes. How are you? I take it Sam dragged you into this?  
]  
] _Sam is smart enough to recognize when he needs allies. Have you experienced any other ]problems with militarized programs?_  
]  
]Ouch! I guess that’s fair if...well, if it’s been 20 years. No, we haven’t had any problems yet.  
]  
] _I have questions about CLU’s plans. Are you able to answer them?_  
]  
]Shoot.  
]  
] _What was the overall aim regarding you?_  
]  
]Capture and conversion.  
]  
] _What was his intent once he captured you?_  
]  
]He wanted to use my disc to duplicate and synchronize the material template stored in the ]laser’s history and match it to exiting programs.  
]  
] _Why your disc?_  
]  
]It unlocks the material data.  
]  
] _How did he know that?_  
]  
]I told him, man. He was curious.  
]  
] _Right. So he thought the material data would define physical bodies for the programs?_  
]  
]He calculated a pretty high likelihood that it would use my default definitions.  
]  
] _Ah. OK, what were his plans in this world?_  
]  
]To learn and evaluate.  
]  
] _Evaluate what?_  
]  
]Us. He was considering invasion.  
]  
] _How?_  
]  
]He wanted to learn how to manipulate the code and build an army.  
]  
] _Can he even do that?_

]I don’t know. I’d say no, but he reverse engineered repurposing when he saw me do it one time, ]apparently. His version is pretty crude, but it did the job. I had to lock down his factories.  
]  
] _Fantastic. Are all of his faction neutralized?_  
]  
]Yeah. We’ve got a few other pockets of unrest, but the ones repurposed by Clu were the most ]militarized.  
]  
] _These pockets aren’t his people?_  
]  
]No, they didn’t trust him enough to answer his call. Apparently we’re too close.  
]  
] _OK. Thanks you for your help. Sit tight, we’re working on it._  
]  
]Will do.

Sam stared down at the log of the conversation. He’d known about the invasion, but the rest was all news to him, and realizing Clu had been so close to success, an army of blank-faced zombies wearing his dad’s face, was making him queasy. “Wow.”

Alan stared down at the log as well, fingers resting at the edge of the interactive interface for a brief moment; after a moment, his fingers twitched, and Sam watched him pull them closer and lace his fingers together, thumbs tucked into the basket formed. 

Suddenly concerned, Sam realized how much Alan was getting thrown at him all at once. Sure he’d mentioned briefly that Clu had been a threat and nearly prevented him getting out, but he hadn’t really gone into the Reunification. “Alan, how are you doing? This is...I mean, this is a lot. I’m freaking out a bit, and it feels like it’s been 10 hours since everything started for me. Are you...OK?”

Alan looked at him almost blankly and then back to the log. “I’m very angry with your father and immensely grateful you both managed to survive in there. I don’t know that I’m _OK_ , no, but yelling at a keyboard never did anything but make me feel stupid. I can wait.”

“Right,” Sam said slowly, remembering the time he’d snuck out of his gram’s house when he was fifteen and she’d found out and panicked, thinking he’d disappeared too. When Sam tried to sneak back in after the party, Alan had been waiting: when he’d spoken, his tone had been close to the deliberately moderated calm he was currently using, and Sam had frozen and shrunk into himself on instinct, sensing the razor-edged anger just barely contained in it. He thought about the Kevin Flynn he’d met in the Grid and wondered if he’d be finding out about that threat after all. 

Alan took a long breath in through his nose, held it, and then released it through his mouth slowly. When he was done, some of the tension in his jaw had eased. “OK, so we know that we don’t need to do anything to merge the physical data.”

Sam made a face and Alan arched a brow. “Well, it’d be weird if they all looked like dad. Or me. Confusing, don’t you think?”

Alan nodded thoughtfully. “You have a point. Well, that’ll be our last resort. Lora might have a suggestion. I actually expected her to call back by now.”

In fact, Lora didn’t call for another twenty minutes. Alan put her on speaker and propped his phone on the edge of Sam’s old laptop. “Hi, sweetheart. Get everything taken care of with the car?”

Lora’s voice came through the speaker, not tinny but distant and slightly distorted. “Yes, finally. The rental agency didn’t want to move my reservation up, and then I had to plug my headset in to charge enough to use it.”

Alan rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m glad you’re on your way. Sam and I are here in the basement under the arcade still. I just got some information you should be aware of.”

Sam listened to the summary of events with half an ear as he accessed the system through his emulator and began looking through the log of his code, looking for whatever would’ve been Flynn’s disc since it acted as the trigger that would apparently unlock, replicate, and attach the material data stored by the laser. He started paying attention when Alan’s steady speech paused and didn’t resume. He sat up and frowned at Alan curiously. 

Alan shrugged.

Sam nearly asked if she had questions, but it clogged in his throat. Did she have questions? Of course she did! Sam had lived the last ten hours (subjective ten hours?) and he was still running up on things that fully baffled him. It had started on the recognizer: the questions had started and only built as he went on, nobody willing to answer them. What questions could Lora have that he could possibly answer? 

“Well,” Lora said, “first off, I want you both to stop thinking about attempting digitization again until I have a chance to examine the equipment.”

Sam ducked his head, half-mutinous, then processed what she’d said and checked on Alan, who appeared to be doing the same thing. He arched his eyebrows at him in a silent query and Alan shrugged with a pointed look. Sam couldn’t hide his grin and didn’t try. Alan _was_ one of the most intellectually curious guys he’d ever known. Hell, the man had told him about how he’d written Tron in the first place because he’d found some easily exploited vulnerabilities in his general exploration of ENCOM’s system back in the day. 

“I didn’t even know the arcade _had_ a basement. That is just like Kevin. What was he _thinking_? Oh, what am I saying. This is Kevin: he wasn’t! The great visionary.” Lora said in a tone that said she was thinking aloud, but loud enough for Sam and Alan to hear her easily. After a moment, she sighed. “Sam...what was it like?”

Sam shifted. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. _How can I describe it?! Incredible where it wasn’t almost normal? Weirdly similar to LA where it wasn’t wildly different? Terrifying and dangerous when it wasn’t weird, or creepy, or awkward? None of that is good! Accurate, but not good!_ He finally settled on, “it was a lot.”

“Hm. And when you were digitized. What did that feel like?”

Sam’s eyes widened. Of course Lora was curious - the laser had been her project back in the good old days. The DoD contracts had dried up before they’d reached human testing by a laughable margin, so questions on Sam’s experience - well, his and his dad’s - were probably eating her alive. “The digitization happened immediately, I guess. It didn’t hurt, but it was kind of weird. I don’t mean…”

Sam paused, gathering his thoughts and them resuming, his voice gaining speed. “I didn’t _feel_ anything exactly, but it was like...you know how people say that time is subjective? Or the theories that it isn’t really linear, that’s just our perception? It felt like that. One minute I was in the real arcade and there were lights and dust and the music really distant from the arcade, and the next minute I was on the Grid. Thinking about it though, it’s like it was longer, that everything...paused.”

“Huh.”

Sam pulled a hand through his hair in agitation. “I can’t give you more than that, sorry. If I went back in, maybe…”

“I’ll be there in an hour, maybe 75 minutes. You can wait that long. What are you working on in the mean time?”

Alan nodded to Sam who rolled his eyes and then cleared his throat. “Hey, Lora. Uh, I’ve been trying to isolate dad’s disc in the record of my code. Since Clu said it’s what allows the programs to integrate with the material data. Alan’s been helping.”

“Lora,” Alan interjected. “Before we get too far into finger wagging...an hour? You’re two hours away.”

“You aren’t even a little cute, Bradley,” Lora said, sounding amused in spite of herself. “It’s only illegal if I get caught. I’ll call when I get close.”

Alan nodded and Sam noticed he was tapping his leg compulsively. “Be safe. Better you get here later than - “

“Not at all,” Lora interrupted. “I promise, Alan. You take care of yourself. Sounds like between the two of us, you might be in the more dangerous position.”

“You might be right,” Alan muttered wryly, then raised his voice. “I’ll talk to you soon. I have to say, for all that it’s an emergency, I’m glad you’re coming back early.”

Lora laughed fondly. “I missed you too. See you soon, Sam!” 

The line disconnected and Alan thumbed the end call button to make sure it disconnected properly. “OK, so. Your father’s disc: do you think you can find it?”

Sam leaned back and held up his hands. “Man, I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m really doing here.”

Alan hummed thoughtfully and nodded. “Well, you’ll have a better chance than me, right now. I should work on something though. Even if it’s just a pizza run...”

He sounded frustrated and Sam realized how awkward it must be for him. Lora’s old project, his dad’s code, Sam’s footprints all over the system from where he’d fumbled around, close enough to see the Grid and being told to wait...yeah, that had to be frustrating.

“Well,” he said slowly, trying to think of the issues he’d encountered in the system. “Some shortcuts would be useful. Between the access point set by the laser and the portal, between both of those and the HQ...but they have to be locked down, Alan. Like incredibly, paranoid delusions locked down. Tag it with my code and create a password: something long. Fifty plus characters.”

“I’ve got it,” Alan interrupted, derailling Sam’s near-panicked lecture. “Anything else?”

“Honestly?” Sam asked after regrouping. “A lot, I bet. But nothing I can untangle enough to point to and say ‘that.’ It all seems equally pertinent.” Alan nodded fingers drumming on his leg. Sam bit his lip. “You could...uh, look at Rinzler? Compare him to Tron and see how they match up and whether I did any major damage clearing away Clu’s rectification.”

Sam sent a message to Flynn through the line Alan had opened up, letting him know Lora would be an hour in the real world, which...god, that would be like two days on the Grid. Sam grit his teeth and pulled the logs back up. He was painfully aware of time passing.

Lora arrived like she’d run the entire way: her honey colored hair was loose and tousled, she was out of breath, red-faced, dressed in rumpled slacks and a cream colored collared shirt that only marginally matched, holding her shoes. Sam smiled automatically. 

Lora’s eyes swept over them both and then she marched up to Alan and hugged him. “Thank god I picked a sensible man!”

Sam winced when she turned to him and her eyes narrowed. “What were YOU thinking?”

“To be fair to myself, I’ve never heard stories about your laser?”

Lora frowned at him for a long moment and then nodded, mouth thinning faintly. Sam smiled sheepishly and then flinched automatically when she slapped his shoulder. “What?”

“I was talking about _jumping off a building._ ”

“Oh, you heard about that,” Sam muttered, glancing at Alan long enough to glare.

“Of course I heard about that! There were news helicopters by the end of it! They interviewed a security guard. He was in shock!”

“I planned everything very carefully,” Sam offered. “And I didn’t get even a little hurt.”

“You planned to get arrested?” Lora asked blankly.

Sam shrugged. “Well, you can’t plan for everything…”

Lora shook her head and looked back at Alan. “He’s your godson.”

Alan nodded, his mouth pursed and obviously - intelligently - he was unwilling to say anything while Lora’s temper was high. Lora sighed and really looked around the room finally, the aggression draining from her features. Sam could tell when she noticed where the laser was set up. Everything else became invisible.

“OK, sweetheart,” she murmured, stepping forward and carefully touching the case. “Show me how well Flynn took care of you.”

Once the tally was in, the answer to her question was “not that badly.” He’s replaced the casing with slightly larger case built to specs and then personally helped insulate the wiring and other delicate parts before leaving it alone for 20 years. 

“In a perfect world, I would have time to replace everything.”

Sam’s eyes widened. That kind of thing would have to take days, or probably weeks to months, more realistically, considering there had to be specialty parts involved. 

His instinctive protest must have been written large over his face because Lora waved her hand at him. “It’s not a perfect world, and it looks like...well, the most delicate parts were insulated. I’m going to have words with Kevin about what tests he conducted before modifying my designs - ha!” She and Alan shared a look between them and then she sighed. “I think...for now it should be OK, considering we’re under the knife with those factions and the virus. 

“Great,” Sam sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. Exhaustion was starting to tug at his ability to focus through distractions and rapid changes. “OK, so...what can we do now?”

Lora and Alan shared a look between them and Alan drummed his fingers absently. “Well, we know we can get Kevin and...Quorra? Out without a problem, probably. The other programs...well, we can get them out right now, probably, but it’ll be hard enough getting paperwork for one man that looks like Kevin Flynn twenty years ago, let alone triplets. If we absolutely have to bring them all out…” He trailed off, brows arching and then continued when Sam nodded immediately. “Right. Well, in that case, I can invent relatives - even twins - but if they look exactly like me, we’ll have the same problem as three Flynns. The best I can think of would be to go in and see if we can manipulate the copy of my data.” He glanced at Lora.

Lora nodded. “We were already conducting experiments on manipulating the data while it was digitized before bringing it out when the project was suspended. If I can identify the logic the system is using to define hair color, eye color, skin elasticity, all of that, then I can figure something out.”

~

Alan’s expression when they stepped out of digital copy of the arcade was priceless. Sam let him have a minute, eyes scanning the sky for Recognizers. Alan’s suit looked hilariously out of place while Sam’s outfit had somehow converted back to the suit he’d been wearing when he’d left the system. _Guys? We’re in._

[[We’re nearly there,]] Quorra sent. [[Sorry for the delay, Rinzler was helping Tron with a limited process scan and wanted to finish before you got here.]]

 _Don’t worry about it,_ Sam broadcasted. Then he switched to a private channel. _Uh, hey man._

Rinzler’s response buzzed with the same rough efficiency he’d noted before. [[Greetings, Sam.]]

 _So, I…_ God, this was awkward. _Are you going to be OK? With meeting Alan, I mean._

Rinzler was quiet for a moment and then an affirmative buzzed along their line. Sam didn’t get anything else, and figured he’d have to live with it as Quorra and Rinzler had just turned the corner on their cycles. He glanced at Alan and found him watching their approach. At least he was pretty sure Alan wouldn’t punch either of them. He had the feeling he’d have his hands full when they met up with Flynn.


End file.
